In the Depth of Winter
by mackillian
Summary: Sequel to Snow Falling Softly. You'll be confused if you haven't read the first story, trust me. Continuing from where SFS left off, through the lens of the All Good Things and Generations. AU. PC, implied RT.
1. Chapter 1

In the Depth of Winter

_"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay an invincible summer." —Camus_

Chapter 1

Time had somehow gotten away from Jean-Luc Picard. Now he paced in his quarters, trying to figure out where exactly in time he'd gotten himself. It couldn't be a dream, he was sure of it. Then again, perhaps that's what crazy people told themselves. _It's all real, all of it. Everyone else is crazy and in the end, I'm the only sane one left._

More than likely, the opposite was true. And like a madman, his feet carried his robed body out the door to find the nearest person. He had to find out where he was, he'd gone from past to present to future and to god knew where right then. He came around the corner and nearly skidded to a dead halt as he came across Will Riker and Deanna Troi. Obviously, the two had been on some sort of date. Normally he would have granted them privacy and only told Beverly about it later, but his current circumstance was too important to set aside.

"Counselor!" he said, surprised at the level of insistence in his voice. "What's today's date?"

Troi turned around, freeing herself from Riker's arms. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Picard made note of the new development. Her dark eyes were puzzled.

"The date," he repeated.

"Four seven nine eight eight," said Will.

Picard repeated the number to himself, over and over. The present, he was in the present. Andrew was away on that trip with his fencing team, learning more about teamwork by climbing a mountain together. His other son hadn't been born yet, both the girls were on the ship, and the ship herself was patrolling near the Neutral Zone. But even knowing where he was did nothing to help him feel anywhere near sorted out. "Four seven nine eight eight," he said again, then realized Riker and Troi were giving him odd looks.

"Captain, are you all right?" the counselor asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. "I don't know how, or why, but I'm moving back and forth through time." His statement hung between them, and he knew exactly how ridiculous it sounded.

Deanna glanced up at Will, then back to Picard. "Why don't you come in and have a talk with me, Captain," she said.

He followed her into her cabin, barely registering her dismissing Riker, pacing as soon as he was in Troi's living area. His feet were cold, he looked down saw that they were bare, and he was running about the ship in his bedclothes. But instead of cracking a joke about it to ease the situation, he kept talking about his experience. "It was though I'd physically left the ship and gone to another time and place. I was in the past..." Some of it came back to him, the uniforms, how tight they had been, how his back would hurt after wearing one for the entire day. How young everyone had been.

"Can you describe where you were? What it looked like?" Troi had settled herself into one of her chairs, leaving him to pace.

His hands moved through the air as he tried to explain, but it was like a memory that caught the corner of his eye and when he tried to look at it directly, it was gone. "It's all slipping away so fast...like waking up from a nightmare." He tried again. "It was years ago, before I took command of the Enterprise. I was talking with someone. I don't remember who. But then—everything changed. I wasn't in the past any longer. I was an old man, in the future. I was doing something outside. What was it?" His hands came out in front of him, rubbing together, as if he might've been holding something. But the memory of what it was slipped away. "I'm sorry. It's gone. I can't remember." The captain stopped pacing and looked over at Troi, feeling more and more like an idiot.

"Would you like something to drink? Tea?" She stood up and walked over to the replicator without waiting for his reply. "Have you considered the possibility that it was just a dream?"

Certainly he had. He'd told himself repeatedly that he was just dreaming, but it couldn't be just that. It was too real. "It was more than a dream, the smells and the sounds, the way things felt to the touch. It was all so real. I was there, I'm sure of it." Picard gave her a slight smile. "Although it would seem that pinning down the where and when of it is very unreal."

Deanna mirrored the same smile back to him, but stayed on topic, recognizing his attempt to lighten things up enough for him to let the situation go. "How long did you stay in each of these time periods? Did it seem like minutes? Hours?"

"I'm not sure." He ran his hands over his bare scalp and resumed his pacing. "At first, there was a moment of confusion, of disorientation. I wasn't sure where I was. But that passed, and then I felt perfectly natural, as though I belonged in that time." Like he did now, but the present felt a bit different to him. Once he knew he was here, he felt at home. "But I can't remember how long I stayed there." Picard paused again, giving Deanna a pained look at his inability to describe what was going on. "I know this doesn't make much sense. It's a feeling more than a distinct memory."

The counselor picked up the two teacups and walked back towards where he stood. "Maybe we can identify specific symbols," she said, reaching to hand him his teacup. "Can you remember anything you saw, an object, a building perhaps—"

The captain reached out to take the tea and then Deanna's voice faded away and this disappeared entirely, as did the teacup, and instead he found himself holding a vine. For a moment, he stared at the vine as if it should've been something else. Then he remembered the pruning shears in his hand and set about finishing trimming the vines. It was late summer, the grapes were starting to take their last turn to ripening. Soon enough it would be time for the harvest. The national council hadn't yet decided what day it would start, but by the looks of the vines and the hot, dry weather, the decision would come down soon. Then he would look for help for the manual labor, because like Robert, he refused to use mechanical methods. It just never seemed right, all that machinery between the vines, shaking them to have the grapes fall off onto a conveyor belt.

A voice interrupted his thoughts. "You know, for the life of me, I can't figure out what the hell a French cocked hat looks like."

Picard stood up slowly, joints creaking in protest. The small of his back had started to hurt again, his hand moved to massage it as he squinted out from under the brim of his hat towards the source of the voice. "Andrew," he said.

The boy, if you could call a forty-one-year old man a boy, smiled. "I figured an old Frenchman like you might know. Maybe even that hat you've got on your head is exactly that kind of hat."

"Andrew," Picard said again, opening his arms to his son. "I thought you were on Romulus," he said as they stepped back.

"I was," Andrew said, reaching down and picking up one of the tool buckets Picard had abandoned. "Now I'm not."

Picard frowned and ran his fingers through his short beard. "Why are you here?"

Andrew sighed and gestured with his hand. "Well, when a mother and a father lov—"

"Andrew." Sometimes, speaking to his son was exactly like speaking to his son's mother. And sometimes, he missed it, while other times, nostalgia was the last thing on his mind.

Another sigh, this one accompanied by a long look down the rows of vines, towards the setting sun. "I was just dropping by."

Then Picard knew exactly why his older son was there. He turned and studied him, waiting for his son to look him in the eye. Even after all these years, the boy hadn't become a very good liar at all. "You were on a dig on Romulus. One of the biggest digs they've had in awhile, your foundation had even managed to get a permit from the Klingons to be on Romulus and now you're just dropping by to see your old father on the family vineyard in France."

Andrew kept facing the horizon. "I was in the neighborhood."

"On the other side of the quadrant."

"It's a big neighborhood."

The sun crept closer to the ground and Jean-Luc knew. "You heard," he said. He made it a statement, there was no question in what he said so that Andrew had nowhere to move.

"I still talk to Mom, even if you don't." Andrew turned away from the sunset and back to him.

"How would your mother know?"

"Dad, you went to a Starfleet doctor. You have a daughter who's also in Starfleet Medical. That daughter still talks to her mother who talks to her son. If you really didn't want any of us to know, you would have seen a doctor not affiliated with Starfleet." Now, Andrew was looking him in the eyes.

"I think for me to escape any of you knowing what's going on with me, I'd have to seek medical treatment in the Delta quadrant."

"You might have a point," Andrew said.

Curiosity struck him. "How is your mother?"

Andrew studied the ground. "She's fine. Seeing on of the doctors she works with, I think. I'm not sure." He looked back up. "When's the last time you saw a doctor?"

Suddenly, frustration flashed right through him and headed straight towards his son. "I'm not an invalid, you know. Irumodic Syndrome can take years to run its course." The quiet snuck between them, and Andrew continued looking towards the ground, then muttered something so softly that Picard couldn't hear it. "What was that?" Picard asked.

Andrew looked up, frustration and hurt apparent in his own eyes. "I _said_, that it was better I see more of you now than when you really start to get sick."

Now it was his turn to feel like an ass. "Oh," he said, as quietly as Andrew's first comment had been. "Well, as long as you're here, you can help me carry in some of these tools."

The boy reached out and took the other bucket from him. Picard looked at him again, realizing that he had to stop referring to him as a boy. His hair was even starting to pick up some gray, he hadn't noticed that before. Andrew had been lucky enough to escape his father's hairline, keeping all the rusty colored hair he'd gotten from his mother, Beverly.

Beverly.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and his thoughts about his ex-wife faded away. In their place, he saw some scraggly looking men around the edges of his rows, running in and out of the cleared paths. Picard drew to a sudden stop, causing Andrew to nearly knock him over. "Did you see that?" Picard asked.

"See what?"

Again, they moved, they were taunting him now. Jeering at him.

Then they were gone. But then he wasn't in a vineyard anymore, he was in a shuttle and Tasha Yar was explaining something to him about the the ship outside. The _Enterprise_. The shuttle skimmed across the outside of the larger vessel's hull and Picard felt a swell of pride. It was his ship. "Sir?" Tasha said.

Then another voice. "Captain?"

He blinked and re-focused his eyes. Deanna Troi stood in front of him, looking at him curiously, the teacup still in her outstretched hand. He'd yet to take it. As he tried to re-orient himself, he stepped backwards and collapsed into the chair behind him. "Tasha, I was just with Tasha. We were in the shuttle..." and then the memory slipped away from him again, water between his fingers. He closed his eyes and held his head in his hands. "And before, I was..." then he couldn't remember. Where had he been before? Something with his hands, his hands. Over his thoughts, he heard the counselor calling his wife.

"Troi to Dr. Picard. Something's wrong with the captain, we're on our way to Sickbay."

For once in his life, Jean-Luc Picard had no intention of protesting.

* * *

Beverly had already been awake when Deanna's call came. In fact, she'd been expecting it. But even expecting those sorts of calls did nothing to make you feel any better once you got them. When Jean-Luc had practically sprinted from the room, she'd come awake and hadn't been able to get back to sleep. Already, the pregnancy had caused her insomnia to return and falling asleep in the first place was a feat in of itself. At first, she wanted to follow him, get him to tell her what was going on, but she didn't act on it, because she also knew him. He needed time and space to sort himself out, and then she could get him to talk. But then when he ran out of their quarters, not saying a word to anyone, she knew something else was wrong, very wrong.

So she expected the call, and while waiting, busied herself with changing back into a uniform, checking to make sure all the kids were alive and asleep. Little Gracie slept like her brother, soundless, almost eerie in how silent she was. Beverly crept into her room, watched her sleep, then leaned in close to hear the small puffs of breath that told her that her daughter was indeed breathing.

Allie slept like her, arms and legs flung out, she didn't snore but you could hear her breathing, you knew she was alive even from the doorway. Even though Andrew was gone on a trip, Conal still slept in his bedroom, raising his canine eyebrows at her when she opened the door. She went to retreat from the room before the big dog got up, but she wasn't quick enough and he ambled over to her and followed her out. She mindlessly went to the replicator and stared at it, vaguely feeling like she should be doing something, but having nothing to do yet. Waiting. So she stared until Conal pressed his nose up against her swollen abdomen. As she got closer to her due date, the Irish Wolfhound had kept a close watch on her, as attentive as any of her family members. The call from the counselor had startled both of them, and she'd thrown on her labcoat and was out the door before Deanna even finished her request.

Jean-Luc was already seated on one of the biobeds when she flew through the door. It felt odd to see him like this, almost as worried and helpless as a child, especially when he was clad only in his pajamas and bathrobe. Beverly frowned at him as Alyssa handed her a tricorder. She opened it up and started a basic medical scan. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I'm traveling back and forth through time," Picard said softly.

Beverly's hand paused in its travel with the tricorder.

He continued. "I was in the past, with Tasha, I remember some of it now. When we were in the shuttle, she was showing me the outside of the _Enterprise_, before I took command. Then I was in the future, I was an old man. I was in the vineyards..." he trailed off, taking a breath. "I had Irumodic Syndrome. So..." Another pause, this one longer. "Perhaps you should check for that as well, see if it's starting already."

Beverly's hand stopped again, longer this time. Then she turned to her head nurse. "Alyssa, can you set up the neurological scanner for me?"

Ogawa gave her a quick nod and went over to set up the machine. Beverly had finished her scan, but the tricorder remained in mid-air while her eyes read and re-read the results. They showed that Jean-Luc was perfectly healthy, at least so far. But Irumodic Syndrome, that would only show on a level four neurographic scan, and as far as she knew, Jean-Luc had never had one. The scans usually weren't done unless there was a genetic predisposition for any of the disorders that could be detected by the scan.

Irumodic Syndrome. Like Alzheimer's in the twenty first century, Irumodic Syndrome took away the person's personality, their ability to speak, think clearly, to recognize the world around them. Eventually, they couldn't recognize themselves, much less their family members. _You should have scanned him when you found out how his grandfather died. They never diagnosed him but his symptoms were like Irumodic. You could have missed this and Jean-Luc will have this illness and you could have stopped it._

"Beverly, are you all right?"

The doctor looked up at Deanna's question. "Oh, I'm fine. I'm sure the scanner is ready now, we should do those neurographic scans to see if there's anything we missed. The base readings say you're fine, Jean-Luc," she said, looking at him as she finished talking.

He nodded slowly. "Maybe the neurographic scans will just show that I'm crazy," he said.

The doctor gave him a quick, tight smile. She almost wished it were so, that it was some sort of psychosis that was causing her husband's current condition, and not the beginnings of Irumodic. One could be cured while the other couldn't. Her worry only grew as he obeyed her given instructions and even Alyssa's instructions exactly, not shifting at all. On any normal visit, it would be all she could do to manage to get him to hold still while any other of her staff unlucky enough to be assigned the task would give up in frustration. In fact, the only Picard that was cooperative as a patient in Sickbay was Gracie, and Beverly suspected it was only because she wasn't old enough to know better. As she typed in the instructions for the scans, her hand sought out his. Then she let go so the scan could finished. "Go ahead and sit up," she said. "I'll be right back, I need to get the results."

Beverly went to the other terminal as the information downloaded and got interpolated. As she watched, the scanner's information downloaded to the padd and populated on her screen.

Her breathing stopped. She had to make a concerted effort to tell her lungs to let go of one breath, to take another, let go, take another. Right there, on the parietal lobe, there was a defect. Her fingers reached out and brushed the padd's screen, as if she could erase it. It could be the beginning of the illness, right in front of her. It could be months or years, maybe even decades, but it would happen. If the illness set in quickly, he would miss so much. Their children getting married, grandchildren, because while he might physically be there, the echoing shell of his former self would be a warm body, containing nothing that used to be the brilliant mind of Jean-Luc Picard.

She suppressed a shiver and ignored a concerned look from her Betazoid friend. "I've finished extrapolating the data from the neurographic scan," she said, holding the padd in front of her like a shield. "I don't see anything that might cause hallucinations or a psychogenic reaction."

Both Picard and Troi showed slight relief on their faces, but Beverly couldn't share in that. A psychotic break would be easier on all of them, compared to the alternative.

"Is there any indication of temporal displacement?" Deanna asked.

"No. Usually a temporal shift would leave some kind of trypamine residue in the cerebral cortex. But the scan didn't find any." Beverly crossed her arms and fixed her husband with a raised eyebrow. "Personally, I think you just enjoy waking everyone up in the middle of the night."

When he smiled this time, though small, it was genuine enough to reach his eyes. "Actually, I just like running around the ship in my bare feet," he said.

The smile she returned to him was small as well, but just as genuine. Alyssa tapped her arm and handed her the other results, then disappeared. She'd obviously read the other results and knew that a private conversation would be ensuing and had decided to make herself scarce. She had the sixth sense of a good nurse. "Your blood gas analysis is consistent with someone who's been breathing the ship's air for weeks. If you'd been somewhere else, there would be some indication of a change in your oxygen isotope ratios," Beverly said, then she stopped. The other information would have to come out, there was no other news to give, nothing else in the report that could provide relief, only worry remained. And that worry was something she needed to speak with Jean-Luc alone about, at least at first. Beverly slid a glance at Troi. "Deanna, could you excuse us?"

Sometimes, having an empath as a friend and counselor came in handy. When the doctor made her request, she didn't have to worry about hurt feelings on Deanna's part, she'd know there was no spite or anger behind it. They just needed some privacy. "Of course," the counselor replied, then made herself as scarce as Alyssa.

She wanted to sit, she wanted to pace, she even wanted to run, anything but tell him the news she had to give. Finally, she leaned against the biobed across from where Picard sat, his eyes following her closely as she moved. "Jean-Luc," she said, "I scanned for any evidence of Irumodic Syndrome, as you suggested. There wasn't any. But I did detect a small structural defect in your parietal lobe." She handed him the padd with the graphic data output.

He glanced at it, then looked back up at her, his gray eyes had widened a bit. "A defect that you've never noticed before?"

_That I should have._ She knew it wasn't him accusing her, she was accusing herself. "It's the kind of thing that would only show up on a level four neurographic scan. It could leave you susceptible to several neurological disorders, including Irumodic Syndrome." She continued with her clinical line of thought, trying to sound positive so that he could be. "Now, it's possible you could have that defect for the rest of your life without developing a problem. But even if you do, many people lead perfectly normal lives for a long time after the onset of Irumodic Syndrome."

He didn't believe her either. "Then why do you look like you've just signed my death sentence?" he asked, standing and taking her hands in his.

She shrugged. "I'm sorry. I guess..." she bit her lip, wanting to stay in control of her emotions, but her clinical detachment had disappeared as soon as Jean-Luc had stood up. "This just caught me off guard." Her eyes went to the ceiling, the walls around them, the floor.

"Hey." He'd moved his hands to cup her face to make her look directly at him. "Let's not worry about it. Something tells me you're going to have to put up with me for a very long time." He kissed her softly as she smiled at him and his gallows humor.

She held her forehead to his. "It won't be easy, but I'll manage." Standing there with him, her body finally settled and became still. Chuckling at her comment, his hand drifted from her cheek and onto her abdomen. As if he'd sensed his father, their son kicked inside her, telling them that he was alive and well. His chuckle turned into a grin, their problems disappearing, if for a moment. But while you were in those moments, it was all that mattered.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

So it would happen, then. Years, months, they didn't know how much time he had. Or if the defect wouldn't affect anything at all, if everything would stay dormant, and life would go on. Yet Beverly had a point that he couldn't argue, he could only put his hands over his eyes and pretend it wasn't there—he'd been to the future, he knew the illness would come. They both did, however much they insisted aloud that it wouldn't.

Watching her try to tell him her news, seeing her eyes start to get that glisten, then darting everywhere except at him, he'd known it was bad, and known that she was upset. She didn't want to share her upset, it's the way she was, the way they both were. But when they'd married, they had decided that they would share those upsets and work through them together, even though it went against their instincts to lay their burdens on others.

Yet those burdens that she had, they weren't hers alone, and he wouldn't let her hide them from him. Their unborn son moving between them gave him some hope, quickly replaced by sadness. He didn't know how long he'd have with this one after all. He felt her anxiety return when her muscles tensed up again. She'd had the same thought.

"Captain," Commander Riker said right as he came through the Sickbay doors.

Jean-Luc stepped away from Beverly, now highly aware of his bare feet as he saw more and more of his officers. "Yes?"

"We've checked the sensor logs and they show you haven't left the ship," he paused, giving the others time to absorb the information. "You also have a priority one message from Admiral Nakamura."

Picard lifted his eyebrow, priority one meant the admiral was waiting on the other end of the comm channel in order to speak with him face to face. He glanced at Beverly. "May I use your office?"

She nodded, picking up the padd again and walking over to the scanner. Most likely to double and triple check the results. It was her way. Picard sat behind her desk and opened the channel.

"Captain Picard," said the admiral.

"Admiral," said Picard, who then sat dumbfounded in the chair as Nakamura explained the situation in the Neutral Zone, a fleet of Romulan ships just across the border, Starfleet nervous enough to assemble their own fleet. Of course, the _Enterprise_ was being ordered there as well.

"You understand your orders, Jean-Luc?" asked the admiral.

"Yes, I do."

"Good. Starfleet out." The channel closed and the screen went blank. Nakamura had always been terse and to the point.

The captain tapped his communicator. "Picard to Lieutenant Worf."

"Worf here."

"I want you to set course for the Neutral Zone, maximum warp."

"Yes, sir." Channel closed again.

The captain stood up, the orders given, the waiting only starting. Now he had to go tell Beverly and his first officer and neither one would be happy. As he took another step towards the open doorway, he stumbled, pitching forward.

Andrew caught him and helped him up before he hit the ground. Gone was the recycled air of the starship, replaced by the dry heat of France in August. Everything felt out of place and panic rose in him as his body refused to settle into accepting where he was. "This isn't my time, I belong somewhere else," he said.

His son let go of him and gave him an odd look. "What?"

Still, he couldn't decide where he felt at home, or when. "I mean I—" he stopped, he couldn't get things straight in his head, and he wanted Andrew to stop giving him that damn look. "I wasn't here a moment ago." The words stumbled over themselves as his own feet had just done. He wondered where his clarity of mind had gone, why he sounded like a blabbering old fool.

Andrew didn't help matters by the tone of frank disbelief in his voice. "Dad, I've been here with you the entire time. You haven't gone anywhere."

Picard had to make him understand that none of this was right. "No, no. I was somewhere else, it was a long time ago." The memories started to make their familiar escape and he sought them out. "I was talking to someone." Then he remembered. "Your mother. Beverly."

The look on Andrew's face changed, reticence crawling in to visit the concern.

Picard frowned. "Beverly was there," he said. "She was." Even to him, it sounded like he was a child insisting that he'd seen a monster under his bed.

For a moment, Andrew held his breath, deciding what to say. "Dad," he started.

The captain roughly jerked his arm away from his son. "I'm not senile you know. It _did_ happen. I was here, with you, and then I was in another place. It was..." he reached for the memories again, but they had faded, now nearly nonexistent. Then he had it. "It was back on the _Enterprise_!" Unsure again, he reached, another time. "At least, I think it was. I mean, it seemed like Sickbay. But maybe it was a hospital...or..." Then it was gone, to wherever his son seemed to think his entire mind had gone too as well.

"I think we should go back to the house, maybe call your doctor," Andrew said, reinforcing what Picard had assumed, reaching for his father's arm again.

"No."

Andrew raised an eyebrow.

Picard's frustration rose. "I know what you're thinking. It's the Irumodic Syndrome. It's beginning to affect the old man's mind. Well, it's not that. And I wasn't daydreaming, either."

Andrew kept his eyebrow raised, crossing his arms.

The frustration fought its way out. "Stop acting like your mother," he said.

Both of his son's eyebrows came down and his eyes clouded over, the light the summer had given them disappearing. Andrew broke eye contact, looking away towards the sky, then the rest of the rows of vines crowded with ripening grapes, anywhere but at his father.

Then Picard realized he'd done something he promised himself he would never do in bringing up the boy's mother in anger. So he picked up the clippers and set out towards the house, leaving one source of his frustration behind in the vineyard. There would be no stumbling this time.

"Wait," Andrew said.

He most certainly wasn't going to wait. If that boy insisted on not believing him, he would figure things out for himself. If he could just drop by, then he could just drop away just as well. It was a particular talent of his, he excelled at alienating people, and he could do the same to Andrew now and save them both the emotional trouble. With Beverly, he'd done an exceptionally good job of it. Gracie barely tolerated him, while his younger son pretended that none of them existed. Andrew had been determined to keep the peace between all of them, even now, fifteen years later.

"Dad." Andrew hadn't moved from his spot among the vines.

Picard ignored him and kept walking towards his house. He'd do it himself, it always ended up that way. The only way things got done. In front of him, a snake ventured from underneath a shrub and startled the old man. He tripped and fell to the ground, unable to catch himself, as his reflexes had gone the way of his mind. Jean-Luc let loose a few swears and pushed himself back to his feet.

"Come on, you're being ridiculous." Andrew sounded like he was getting closer.

Picard wasn't going to let him catch up. Except now he was old and his body refused to move as quickly as he told it, while Andrew was still young and had the long legs to easily catch up to his father.

"You're going to hurt yourself," Andrew said, now walking next to him.

"I'm already hurt enough." His voice was rough as he spoke and they both knew it wasn't any physical ailment, either in brain or body, that caused the hurt.

"Papa," Andrew said.

This made Jean-Luc halt in mid-step. His son hadn't called him that in a long time. Yet even though he'd stopped, he wouldn't look up and allow the eye contact.

Andrew finished his statement. "That was a long time ago."

"Yes, it was," he whispered to himself, then set towards the house again. He was almost there.

"Let's say that you aren't dreaming this time travel thing up," Andrew said. "Let's say that it's really happening."

The captain drew up short and turned around to glare at his son. "Are you trying to placate the old fool now? Is that what you're trying to do?"

"Will you shut up?" Andrew said.

Picard was so shocked at his son's command that he did exactly that. He shut up and listened.

"I'm actually trying to help you here and not write you off, while you're trying your damnedest to shove me away," Andrew said, his voice hard and determined. "I'm not going anywhere, so you can choose to believe that I believe you or play your leave-me-the-hell-alone card, either way, I'm staying in the game. You can't chase me away. You should've figured that out by now, you've been trying to for years."

He snorted his disbelief. "You haven't exactly been hanging around."

"I'm here, aren't I? Face it, Jean-Luc Picard, you've got a son who is just as stubborn as you are. I'm going with you on this. I believe you. So the question is, what do you want to do about it?"

His first instinct was to continue the stand-off. He didn't want to give in to his son's determination to stick around. But he also didn't want to continue the unsettling travels through time, not when he could find people to figure out the more complicated aspects of theoretical physics. He'd fight with his son another day, there would always been time for that. Some days, it was all they had left, the way it had been with Beverly, near the end. But for now, there was one person geographically close to them that could help. "Data. I want to see Data."

"Is he still at Cambridge?" Andrew asked.

Picard frowned. "Yes, I think so." Movement caught his attention from his peripheral vision. His eyes followed it and the scraggly men were back, jumping and jeering, then laughing at him. Hysterically laughing. Doing exactly what he felt like doing, laughing at this old fool of a man who hadn't managed to keep his mental faculties intact. An old man who dealt with pity from those around him who remembered what he used to be like. "Do you see them?" he whispered, as if they could hear him and would run away.

"See who?"

"They're everywhere. They're laughing at me, all of them." A ring of them, around him and Andrew, then the laughing echoed in his own mind as he laughed at himself.

"Why are they laughing?"

Picard looked up at his son from under his hat, then back towards those scraggly men, but they were gone. "I don't know," he said.

Andrew followed his gaze and mirrored his frown. "Come on," he said. "Let's go see Data."

They easily arranged a shuttle from La Barre to Cambridge. Most of the travel time was spent in a silent truce as they both mired in their own thoughts. It happened between them often, usually more companionable than it had been in the past years, but it still held an element of normalcy for both of them. Picard took the risk to slide a glance over at his son as Andrew looked out the window, watching the European continent pass below them. Then the boy strained upwards a bit and Picard knew exactly what he was trying to do—see that part of the sky when the sky stopped being sky and became space.

_He still dreams about it. _"Why didn't you ever apply to Starfleet Academy?"

Andrew turned away from the window. "What?"

The captain pointed towards the twilight line between atmosphere and space. "You were dreaming about it, just now. You dreamed about it as a boy, too. What made you give up so easily that you never even tried?"

Andrew let out a little laugh. "Don't you think it's a little too late to be asking that question? You should have talked to me about it years ago, when you could have changed my mind soon enough to get me to apply."

"I did. You didn't listen."

He looked out the window again. "I wasn't able to listen. The only thing I could hear then were my own thoughts, all my self doubt. I didn't think I had it in me."

"To be in Starfleet? You were more than qualified, you would have passed the tests, I'm sure of it."

"I know, you told me that before, too." He shrugged. "I didn't think I had a real capability of being a leader, for people to actually follow me. And if I was going to be a Starfleet officer, I wanted to be a line officer and do exactly what I didn't think I'd be capable of. I mean, I couldn't be a security officer or in any of the medical sciences. I've got an atrocious bedside manner. Gracie chases me away if I ever enter her Sickbay and there's any patients nearby. She says they have a knack for getting them particularly cranky and then they all disappear right after I come in. She's..." Then he stopped talking, leaving his thought unfinished.

"She's what?"

Andrew shifted away. "Nevermind. Forget it."

He knew what Andrew had kept himself from saying. "She's a lot like your mother."

The shuttle landed, the doors opened and passengers stood and started to file out. "Yeah," Andrew said, then got out of his own seat. "Let's go see Data."

Subject closed. But his mention of Beverly, even non verbally, jarred a piece of their earlier conversation to the forefront of his mind. He mulled over it as he followed his taller son through the crowd and towards the university buildings. She was seeing someone now. She'd gotten over him, over them. Over what had happened. Indignation spiked through his limbs, how dare she recover when he couldn't. Then again, Andrew seemed to be doing okay, he was a well respected archeologist.

But at the same time, it felt wrong. Walking behind him, he knew it should be a Starfleet uniform on Andrew's shoulders and not the civilian clothes he wore. It had never been like Andrew to give up so easily, yet he had. While his contributions to the archeological field were valuable, it seemed a waste that he wasn't commanding a starship by now. He'd always had the capability and once, he'd also had the confidence. At some point, he'd lost it, and Picard couldn't pinpoint when. If only he'd caught it..._if only_. His life seemed to consist of a lot of those, an entire series of what ifs.

"Can you still remember any of what's going on?" Andrew asked.

"What do you mean what's going on?"

"I don't know, maybe the entire reason why we're coming to see Data with barely any prior notice?" He picked up the pace.

Picard knew the faster walk was meant to frustrate him. It worked. "I remember it," he said. "I was just distracted."

"I'm sure," Andrew said, then went up the stairs to the door of the traditional residence for the holder of the Lucasian Chair.

The captain scowled and followed him, albeit at a slower speed. He was still scowling when Data opened the door. Time had left its mark on all of them, but on Data, it had left a swath of white through a quarter of his hair, as if time had taken a paintbrush straight through it. Picard made no mention of it as Data motioned them inside, but Andrew spoke his opinion. "What the hell happened to your hair?" he asked. "Did you lose a bet with a skunk?"

Very distinctly, with Andrew's words, Jean-Luc was reminded of Allie.

"I have found that a touch of gray adds an air of distinction," said Data.

"It certainly does," Andrew said as he walked past Data and into the android's study.

Data didn't pick up on the sarcasm and didn't bother to continue his conversation with Andrew. "Captain, could you tell me what's brought you here?"

Picard settled himself in a chair, the travel in addition to a full day's work in the vineyards had exhausted him. Then he set about telling Data about his travel, shifting back and forth from the past, the present, and the future. "I know how it sounds," he finished. "But it happened. It's real. I was back on the _Enterprise_." He scowled when he saw Data and Andrew exchanging looks. He might as well have made the expression permanent.

"When was the last time you saw a physician about your Irumodic Syndrome?" Data asked.

His answer was quick. "A week ago. I was prescribed peridaxon."

Andrew's head snapped around. "Oh sure, you'll tell _him_. I asked you that same question and not only did you not answer it, but you snapped at me about 'not being an invalid' and changed the subject." He made a noise of exasperation, then considered the medication. "Peridaxon? It isn't a cur—"

"It isn't a cure, I know," Picard finished for him. "Nothing can stop the deterioration of my synaptic pathways." The looks both men gave him didn't change in the least. The frustration came back, as mean as those laughing scraggly men. "You think I'm senile. You think that this is all some delusion of mine."

"I didn't actually _say_ that," said Andrew. "You've said it yourself. Repeatedly."

"In all honestly, it's a thought that has occurred to me," Data said straight after. Andrew glared at him, but the professor continued, oblivious. "However, there's nothing to disprove what you're saying, either. So it's possible that something is, in fact, happening to you." He started pacing. "The first thing we should do is give you a series of neurographic scans. We can use the biometrics facility here at the university."

Picard jumped up from his spot on the couch. "That's it! That's the Data I knew!" he said.

When he landed, it was on the deck of the _Enterprise_. The crew had formed ranks in front of the shuttle, and Tasha Yar stood next to a lectern. "Commanding officer, _Enterprise_, arriving," she announced.

Picard found he held a padd in one of his hands. Something in the back of his mind told him that Tasha shouldn't be alive. In the assembly in front of him, he saw Worf, Troi, O'Brien, all of them impossibly young. They all were watching him expectantly. Memories of the future drifted away and he remembered his task. This Galaxy class vessel, she was his ship now. He read from the padd, "To Captain Jean-Luc Picard, stardate four one one four eight."

The laughing started again. He glanced upward and above the assembly, he saw those damned men again, if they could even be called that. They more resembled trolls from stories he'd heard as a boy. "You are hereby required and requested to take command of the USS _Enterprise_ as of this date. Signed, Rear Admiral Norah Satie, Starfleet Command."

The assembled crew let out a cheer.

On the catwalks above them, the laughing men let out a series of jeers, accompanied by catcalls. Picard looked from the crew and back to the men, but they had disappeared. He, on the other hand, had had enough. "Red alert! All hands to battle stations!" he ordered.

For a moment, no one moved. Obviously, calling a red alert during a taking of command ceremony was a departure from normal protocol.

"You heard the captain. Move!" said Tasha Yar, the first to put her faith in her new captain.

They moved.

Subspace sensor sweeps revealed no threats, nor did physical sweeps of the ship by the security teams. Troi reported that she sensed nothing out of the usual. Picard settled for a change in alert down to level two. Nothing. He still had nothing, but his memories, out of reach as they were, told him otherwise. Something was out there. Perhaps someone.

"Sir, Starfleet has issued a fleet wide alert. A number of ships, civilian and otherwise, are headed toward the Devron system," O'Brien said, handing him a padd as the captain stepped onto the bridge.

Picard read aloud from the padd, "To investigate the appearance of a large spatial anomaly."

"Starfleet is canceling our mission and ordering us to the Devron system," said the chief, turning to Tasha and Worf.

"No," said Picard. "We will continue with our mission to Farpoint Station." His abrupt disobedience of Starfleet orders brought about protests and questioning, but they still did as he said, still kept faith in him. There was something waiting for them on the way to Farpoint. He had a meeting with Q that he shouldn't miss. And waiting on the station itself would be Beverly.

He smiled to himself as he turned to go back to his ready room. It would be good to see her in the midst of all this, so that something felt right.

"Jean-Luc, what's going on?"

And she was there.

Except instead of his ready room on his new ship, he was standing next to Beverly's desk in Sickbay, barefoot and in his bathrobe. He blinked, trying to get ahold of where in time he was. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that his first officer and chief medical officer were looking at him from the office doorway, both concerned. Will had a beard, the uniforms were back to some semblance of being comfortable. He was in the present, where he was speaking to Beverly, where he was home.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"It happened again."

At those words, Beverly Picard immediately reached into her lab coat, drew out her tricorder, and started scanning Jean-Luc's head. "A time shift?" she asked him, though the question seemed unnecessary. Both she and Will Riker had witnessed the vacant stare the captain had when they walked into the doorway, witnessed the blinking of his eyes and then watching something inside of them return and right itself.

"Yes," said the captain.

Beverly continued her scan as Jean-Luc relayed to Will what he'd just experienced. She had to figure out what was going on with him, hoping that maybe it wouldn't be the Irumodic Syndrome. Then she saw it, right in his hippocampus. The level of acetylcholine had increased by thirteen percent from when she'd scanned him a few minutes ago. Unbelievable.

"What is it?" Riker asked, reacting to her expression.

She was answering Will's inquiry, but was looking at Jean-Luc when giving it. "Within a matter of minutes, you've accumulated almost two days worth of memories."

With evidence in hand that proved he was truly traveling through time, the captain called a senior staff meeting to apprise them of the situation. Even as he sorted through his crew's suggestions and handed out orders, Beverly observed the telltale signs of his exhaustion. He blinked much more than he tended to, his fingers massaging the back of his neck where his muscles tensed up when he was tired, the slight pauses before he spoke, as if brain had gotten sluggish. Which, most likely, it had. They had only been asleep for an hour or so before he'd bolted from the room, and after the exhausting negotiation mission they had just completed, he needed his rest. And that was all putting aside the notion that he was traveling through time.

"All departments should submit a combat readiness report by 0800 hours tomorrow," he finished. "Dismissed."

She noted the distaste in his voice at giving the combat readiness order. Combat was the last reason he'd wanted to become a starship captain. He was an explorer, not a soldier. Except the harsh reality was that he was a brilliant strategist and when Starfleet needed someone for a tactical mission, Jean-Luc was nearly always chosen. Briefly, she allowed her attention wander from him to observe the interaction between two of her friends.

"Looks like it's going to be a late night," Will said, addressing the counselor. "Want to get some dinner first?"

Gathering up her own padd, she flashed the first officer a smile. "I'd love to."

Beverly made a mental note to interrogate her friend during their next exercise session. _That_ smile was much different than the other ones she'd seen her friend give Will. Something was going on between the two of them, more something than had happened since they'd first reported to the _Enterprise_.

"And I want continuous subspace sweeps, Mr. Data. We might detect a temporal disturbance," she heard her husband say. She wished she could stay distracted by the relationships between her friends, but things were never that easy. Right then, there were more important things to think about.

"Will, with this time shifting, I experience a moment of disorientation. If this should happen during a crisis, I want you to take command immediately." Picard's voice had taken more hesitancy to it, while knowing he had to issue the command, it didn't make it any less painful to do so.

_What will it be like for him, when the Irumodic Syndrome affects him?_ The thought struck Beverly hard, for a few minutes, she'd managed to forget the about the future Jean-Luc had witnessed. The thought must've been a strong one, because Deanna turned around and gave her a quizzical look, a look that Beverly knew all too well. They would most certainly be talking later. _Oh, we'll talk later, my friend_. Troi also picked up on that thought, as her dark eyes went wide and she turned back around to face Will.

One Will Riker who seemed incredibly distracted by said ship's counselor.

"Number One?" Picard asked, attempting to get his first officer's attention back to his duty.

Riker managed to break eye contact with Deanna enough to respond to his captain. "Sorry, Captain. Be prepared to take command. Aye, sir."

Exhaustion not withstanding, Jean-Luc hadn't lost his own powers of observation. His quick glance in Beverly's direction and the slight smile tugging at his lips told her that he'd seen the change as well. Not only that, but he was going to take advantage of it, to use that brief distraction of amusement to keep the worries at bay, as she had. "Speaking of disorientation, are you all right?" he asked.

Will, however, had lost his ability to see the minute. "Just a little distracted. I'm fine."

"I'm sure you are, Commander," Picard said. "Try and stay a bit more focused on the task at hand and a bit less on what might be."

Will still didn't catch on, but Deanna did, and shot the captain a glare.

Picard stared right back at her, daring her to say something aloud.

She didn't.

"Will, you have the bridge," he said to the first officer who had finally managed to engage himself in the conversation, right as it was coming to an end. "I'll be in my ready ro—"

"He'll be in his quarters," Beverly said, standing up. She fixed him with a look of her own, daring him to question her judgement on the matter.

He didn't. Instead, he amended his statement. "I'll be in my quarters."

Riker's mouth broke into a smirk. While the innuendo of before sailed right by him, he'd caught the last bit. He knew, as well as anyone, Beverly wasn't one to be crossed. As his mouth opened to make a comment, the ship's counselor punched him in the arm. "What?" he said, looking down at her.

"Don't say a _word_," she said, then hurried him out of the conference room before he could get himself into more trouble.

Jean-Luc started chuckling when the doors closed. "He's completely oblivious."

"Women tend to have that effect on men," she said, walking over to him.

He shook his head. "I must have interrupted something when I came upon them in the corridor earlier. They were right outside her quarters, in each other's arms." He frowned. "I think he was going to kiss her."

"Jean-Luc! You interrupted that?"

His reaction was that wide-eyed innocent look her children all seemed to have inherited from him. Slowly but surely, she'd become immune to it, but it still had an effect on her. "Well, I was a bit concerned about traveling back and forth through time at that moment," he said, his voice first tinged with light hearted humor, then ending slowly as the frown took over his features.

The mood dampened by the circumstances, the rest of the trip back to their quarters was spent in silence. She did her best not to keep looking at him, as her thoughts drifted into the maudlin, wondering how long it would be before he couldn't recognize her, before he couldn't banter with his friends, before he became a husk of his former self. She would be there with him through all of it, she was certain. All of them would, it wasn't in their nature to abandon things they'd promised to see through. But it would be hard, seeing him like that, watching him degenerate, mourning the loss of the man before he was even gone.

As a little girl, she remembered crying over her great grandmother's death. Nana had found her, spoken with her. Beverly remembered being appalled that Nana didn't seem very sad. It confused her, because Nana had been so close to her own mother. Yet the fact that she had died didn't seem to phase her. Finally, she was able to bring herself to ask the question. "Why aren't you sad?" Her words came out in between hitching breaths caused by her tears.

"She finished her work," Nana had said.

"I don't understand." And she hadn't. The little girl Beverly had been couldn't comprehend anyone being finished with what they needed to do in their life. She couldn't comprehend it because her entire life lay before her, not behind her, as Nana's mother's had.

Nana explained, as she always did. "Death, my dear, is only tragic when it comes before you've had a chance to complete your work in this world. Otherwise, as an inevitable part of life, it is no more tragic and unfair than being born. They are both parentheses framing life."

That explanation, that view of the role of death in life, had helped Beverly immensely in her work as a physician. No longer did she become upset at every death she witnessed, because she realized that some were meant to be, some came at just the right time. Fate, it seemed, had some concept of a final curtain call, and when an encore would be a mistake. But Jean-Luc wouldn't have that luxury of finishing his work before death would take him, because it seemed his fate was that living death, drawn out and painful for everyone involved. She could see it already, the frustration that would come out in his moments of lucidity, even as they grew more rare and more far between the stretches of dementia. To continue her grandmother's punctuation metaphor, Jean-Luc would have a trailing ellipses instead of a full stop.

She didn't want it to happen. When they entered their quarters, Conal greeted them, then settled back down. But he didn't close his eyes, instead he watched as the captain immediately started to pace, apparently feeling as restless as Beverly felt. Her insomnia had already been a problem before this all had started, and with an added concern, sleep had run off into the sunset, leaving her far behind. She studied him as he paced, that determined set back to his jaw, brow furrowed in thought, hands clasped behind him.

He was waiting, as she was, but they waited for different things. She was waiting for the illness to start to take hold, while he was waiting for the more immediate, the time shift. For him, it would be days that he was gone, for her, only an instant. Yet the time for both of them would seem equally drawn out. Then he sat in the chair behind the desk, shifting in the seat, then pulling out another padd and reading it.

Quietly, she went to the replicator. She had to get him to sleep. "Milk, warm," she said. "With a dash of nutmeg." It was his recipe that he'd gotten from his aunt and programmed into the system. Idly, she wondered if he'd programmed it at the same time as he'd put in his 'Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.' The thought made her smile.

The glass with the milk formed on the small shelf and Beverly removed it. Jean-Luc didn't notice her actions until she'd set it next to his elbow. "What's this?" he asked, putting down the padd.

"A prescription. A glass of warm milk and eight hours uninterrupted sleep." She couldn't stop the Irumodic, but she could help him this way, getting him to rest.

The crinkle formed on his brow as sat back and crossed his arms.

She wasn't going to take any excuses. "Doctor's orders." She crossed her arms as a mirror to his, equally confrontational. "You're exhausted. I don't know if you've slept in the past or the future, but I know you haven't slept in the present. Get some rest, or I'll have you relieved and sedated." Her tone stayed light enough, the touch of seriousness was there, but it was also a familiar banter. After all, he'd known since she'd announced he'd be in his quarters and not his ready room that she was going to insist that he rest. It came with the territory of marrying a doctor.

The crinkle went away and he allowed himself to smile. "Yes, sir," he said. His fingers moved around the glass, but he didn't take a sip of the drink. Instead, he studied her as she had him, and the silence grew between them, oppressive and distinctly uncomfortable. She was upset and out of sorts and they both knew it. And the cause wasn't a mood swing from the pregnancy, as all of them had become familiar with and tended to scatter to the corners when those moods swung on their pendulum.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

It wasn't something she wanted to say aloud again. So she changed the subject. "I was just thinking about Andrew on his trip. I know they were going to be doing a significant amount of climbing, not just hiking, but rock climbing. I wonder if he's okay."

His look was dubious, he'd recognized the subject change, but seemed willing to play along. "Unlike you, he isn't afraid of heights. I'm sure he's fine."

"They put him in charge, you know. He hates that. What if he isn't successful? What if he can't get anyone to listen to him?"

"Beverly, he's a gifted leader, he hasn't realized it yet, and that's why they assigned him to be in charge of the group, so he could figure that out. He's fine."

Obviously, her husband had no worries about their son and couldn't be persuaded otherwise. There was his twin, however. Jean-Luc adored his daughters. Maybe she could get him off track by talking about them. She'd wanted to discuss the impending separation anyway. The doctor's eyes wandered over to her older daughter's closed bedroom door. "And when we're on Earth, Allie is planning to visit and apply to schools."

"I know, she told me as much."

"She'll be leaving us."

"It has to happen some time."

He sounded so level headed and settled on the matter that she quickly turned her head from looking at her daughter's door and back to the captain. "Will you stop being so at ease with this?"

Both his eyebrows shot up. "Perhaps." He reached out and took the hand she'd rested on the desk. "Beverly." This time, when he made eye contact, he didn't allow her to look away. "What's really wrong?"

She withdrew her hand and started pacing. It had to be said. When she spoke, her voice was hurried. "As a physician, it's often my job to give people unpleasant news. To tell them they need surgery, or that they can't have children..." then her voice slowed down, she stopped the pacing entirely, and turned to face him. "Or that they might be facing a difficult illness."

Realization hit him and moved over his strong features. Then he stood up and moved to her, his hands gripping her upper arms firmly, a support. "You said yourself that it's only a possibility."

She bit her lip to keep the frustration in, but it brushed her will away and came out. "But you've been to the future, you know it's going to happen. It's not a possibility, Jean-Luc, it's a certainty. I'm a physician, I know, and I should be able to face a grave and debilitating illness. But with you, it's different. You aren't just my patient. You're a part of me, and so are they." She motioned with her chin towards the bedrooms. "I'm just having trouble adjusting to the idea that something isn't a might happen, but is a will happen. That I'll lose you before you're even gone. That they'll lose you."

"I prefer to think of the future as something not written in stone," he said, his tone quiet, as if the future could hear of his plans to change it. "A lot of things can happen in twenty-five years."

Her thoughts turn to those twenty-five years and she closed her eyes. Their son being born, their oldest going off to schools that would lead them to their careers, Gracie finally choosing what she'd want to do with her own life, maybe some or all of them marrying, having children of their own. She wondered what Jean-Luc would be like when Allie married, how he'd handle giving away their daughter to some young man. Maybe even somewhat relieved, that Allie wouldn't be around as much to give him a hard time. But that wouldn't be true, as much as he might complain, he loved that about her, that she could get to him. And when her life moved away from his and she spent more time with whatever life she made for herself, he would miss it. Whatever time they had left with him as himself, they would have to make the most of it. She reached out with her hands, placed them under his jaw, then leaned over and kissed him. It took a moment of manuvering to make it happen, as her abdomen was seven months in the way, but it happened. When she pulled away, he had a small smile on his face that reflected in his eyes. "A lot of things can happen," she said, then went to kiss him again.

A small voice stopped her in mid-motion. "Papa?"

They both turned around to see their five-year-old padding out of her bedroom, her feet bare and her body clothed in pajamas. Conal rose from his corner and went to her, tail wagging. Between rubbing her eyes, Gracie pushed him away as he tried to lick her face. "Stop that."

"Bare feet and pajamas and running about the ship. She's certainly her father's daughter," Beverly whispered into Picard's ear.

He glared at her momentarily and then responded. "And grumpy about being awake. She's certainly her mother's daughter."

He'd gotten her. She laughed quietly, then watched as he picked Gracie up and carried her back to her bed. "Why are you awake?" Gracie asked.

"I had some things I needed to take care of," he replied, pulling the bedcovers over her.

She seemed to consider his answer, then accept it. Having a starship captain for a father and a chief medical officer for a mother lead to a lot of late-night departures from their quarters, nearly always accompanied by discussions between her parents afterward. A few discussions had gotten heated enough to either wake up one of the children. While Gracie would become upset, not understanding the relationship between her parents yet, Andrew or Allie would just shout from their respective rooms for them to be quiet, there were people trying to sleep. At one point in the pre-ship's-dawn hours, Allie had finally come storming out of her room, having had enough. "I realize that the two of you consider the prime directive to be of utmost importance," she'd said. "But I don't. And I certainly don't want the damn thing waking me up in the middle of the night. Call it a truce or a stalemate, I don't care, but shut up and go to sleep." Then with a fiery glare given to each of them, she'd turned and stormed straight back to bed.

Immediately, Beverly and Jean-Luc had turned to the other and said, "She's your daughter."

"Tell me a story," Gracie said.

Beverly smiled. It was her father's voice Gracie wanted to hear, the story itself wouldn't matter. It soothed her, just like it did her mother.

The captain reached and removed a book from one of the many shelves and settled himself in a chair next to his daughter's bed. Within minutes, Gracie had fallen asleep, with Jean-Luc not far behind. She wanted to let him sleep, but from how he was positioned in the chair, he'd wake up and not be able to use his neck properly. Placing her hand on his chest, she shook him a bit, very gently. "Hey," she said into his ear. "Wake up. Come to bed."

Sleep had clouded his eyes and his stubbornness and he did as she asked, muttering about her telling him to wake up and then go to bed, how it made no sense. He was asleep again once he was in bed, and for once, she wasn't too far behind.

* * *

"Dad, wake up." 

Jean-Luc Picard woke to someone shaking his shoulder. He sat straight up, not noticing that it was his adult son who'd done the shaking. "Yes? What is it? Have we reached the Neutral Zone?" As he blinked to clear his eyes, he saw the confusion in his son's as Andrew looked down at him.

"The Neutral Zone?"

Though his eyes had cleared from the fuzziness of sleep, his mind stayed clouded, so hard to hold on to his current thoughts, much less his memories of his travels. Andrew's gray eyes held a significant amount of concern. Picard knew he'd caused it, must think his old man has finally lost his entire mind. "I'm sorry," he said. "I...I was in the past again." He glanced around and found that Data was also giving him a curious look. "What's going on?"

"Data finished arranging for you to have some tests at the biometrics lab. I woke you up so we could go, you've been asleep for nearly an hour." Andrew extended a hand. "I'll help you up."

Picard brushed the boy's hand away and got to his feet without his help. The urgency was too great, there was other things they had to do instead of run pointless tests on him. "No, no. We don't have time for that. We have to get to the Neutral Zone."

Andrew took his hand back and crossed his arms. "Why?"

They'd gotten into it, then. His son crossing his arms like that and questioning him, that meant they were going to argue this into the ground. But he wasn't going to give in. He couldn't. "In the other two time periods, Starfleet reported a," he paused trying to find the disappearing words. "Some kind of spatial anomaly in the..." he couldn't remember where it was, and Andrew standing there glaring at him wasn't helping in the least. Then it was there, he saw it, saw the map in his head. "In the...in the Devron system. The Devron system in the Neutral Zone!"

Andrew frowned. "Dad."

"Will you stop looking at me like that? Listen to me. If the anomaly was in the past, it might be here, too. We have to go find out, we can't just ignore it."

His son stared at him steadily. "Just because you've seen it in two other time frames doesn't mean it's going to be here."

"But if it is, that means something." None of his words seemed to phase his son, the look on his face didn't change at all, the perfect mask. And he should know, Andrew had learned that sort of control from him. No, not control, it was hiding emotions. Allie had hated that about them. Irritated the hell out of her and now it was doing the same to him. "Dammit, Andrew—I know what we have to do."

"I know," he said. "I just told you. We're going to the biometrics lab and running some more tests on you."

"I'm not taking anymore damn tests," Picard said, resolute with his most captainly tone of voice. It was something he'd kept even through the illness, at least so far. When he saw Andrew break eye contact and study the carpeted floor, then look back at him and sigh, he knew he'd won him over.

"One problem. There _is_ no Neutral Zone," Andrew said, his tone changing from the empty hard line of before into what it'd been when he'd woken his father up.

Another detail that had escaped him and now he wasn't sure whether to blame the time travel or his ever-degrading mind in this future. "Right," he said. "Right. Klingons, in this time period, they've taken over the Romulan Empire."

"And relations between us and the Klingon's aren't exactly cozy right now," said Andrew.

The irritation at being talked down to as if he were a crazy old man got to him again. "I know that," he said, walking up to Andrew and glaring at him. "I haven't completely lost my mind, you know."

At first, Andrew's eyes changed again, the affection going to hurt anger and then Picard recognized that smirk, both on his son's face and shining in his gray eyes. He'd left himself open for a comment and like his mother and sister, Andrew wasn't going to let his father escape. Always, he could sense the barb coming straight for him right before it was launched, but there was never anything he could do to stop it.

"You know, I was never quite sure you had it in the first place," he said. The boy's eyes had changed, they were lighter now, matching his mood. "If we're going to the Devron system, we're going to need a ship."

"I recommend we contact Admiral Riker. He currently has the _Enterprise_ in orbit and they have no immediate missions," Data said from his seat at the computer terminal.

"You've been researching and planning this out?" Andrew asked.

"I have learned a lot in watching your interactions between yourself and the captain. Therefore, I knew that eventually, he would convince you to follow him to the Devron system. As soon as he mentioned it, I researched possible ways of getting there."

"I'm that much of a pushover?" Andrew managed to sound quite offended at the idea.

"Not in the least," said Data. "It is merely an indication of the leadership skills of Jean-Luc Picard. His ability and methods of leading are now required courses at the Academy."

"Oh, so he can push everyone over."

"Precisely." Data turned to Picard. "Would you like to contact Admiral Riker?"

It didn't take long to contact the admiral. The face that appeared on the viewscreen had the look of a hard twenty-five years that had come to pass, his hair had gone gray and become laced with streaks of white. Despite the looks he kept exchanging with Data and Andrew, he agreed to speak with Worf and attempt to get the _Enterprise_ into the Devron system. "We expect to accompany you, Admiral," Picard said.

"Are you sure you're up for that, Jean-Luc?" Riker asked.

"Will." The captain's glare said everything.

Riker's grin nearly split his face. "I just wanted to get that reaction," he said. "I'll send a shuttle for you right now."

Only an hour later, they were stepping out of the Starfleet shuttle in the vast shuttlebay of the sixth ship to carry the name _Enterprise_. As Picard walked away from the landing area, the doors opened to admit some officers. The first one came through and for a moment, the captain thought he'd shifted time periods again. The officer in the blue of Starfleet medical had to be Beverly and she was walking straight towards him. Then as she got closer, he saw that she had gray eyes, not blue. In this time period, Gracie was assigned to the _Enterprise_ as one of her doctors. "So this was your doing," she said, irritation ringing clearly in her voice.

For a moment, Picard thought she was speaking to him, but his daughter's gray eyes were fixing a gaze of steel on her older brother. She didn't even acknowledge her father's presence at first. Andrew made his own observation. "You could say hello your father, you know, before yelling at me."

Gracie gave a slight smile and turned to Picard. "I'm sorry, I let my irritation with my brother overtake everything else." She hugged him, but it felt oddly stiff, nothing like what he remembered from the present. Something had happened between them, he couldn't recall what, but since then, she hadn't called him papa.

He noticed that when she let him go, she was immediately trading looks with Andrew, the same looks he'd watched Data and Riker exchange. They were talking about him with their eyes, setting up a time to talk between themselves when he was gone. He'd had enough. "If you're going to talk about me, you might as well talk about me while I'm here."

His daughter frowned and looked toward Andrew. "How long has it been since his last neurological scan?"

Picard knew he'd told them both to talk about him with him present, but it made him damned uncomfortable to have them refer to him as if he weren't there.

Andrew noticed Picard's discomfort. "I don't know, but don't waste your time suggesting it," he said, humor tinging his words. "He said he doesn't want anymore damn tests."

Despite the lightness of the boy's tone, none of it felt right. He shouldn't be this uncomfortable with his children, he should be able to remember what had made things this way. But no matter what he did, he couldn't bring the memories out of their hiding place. Gracie turned to her father again. "Dad, there's a room ready for you on deck five. You should get some rest."

Some of it came back, such as his children treating him like some sort of child when he started to show symptoms of Irumodic. "I'm fine, I don't need any rest."

She sighed and crossed her arms, reminding him of her mother and bringing the rest of the annoyance back. When she spoke, it didn't help in the least. "How about I escort you to your quarters?"

"You're both treating me like an invalid, but I assure you I've got a few years left. I don't need to be led around, and I don't want to be patronized." As he'd done with Andrew, he crossed his arms to match his daughter's defensive pose.

Gracie studied him for a moment, then dropped her arms to her sides. "You're right, I'm sorry."

Suddenly, he wasn't sure what to do. He'd expected a fight, not an apology. He couldn't recall the last time any of his children had given in this easily. And he started to feel the toll of his exertions, of the frantic shifts from time period to time period, trying to deal with new memories when he shifted to the future, not understanding what had happened to make things turn out this way.

And it all made him tired. "Now," he said, looking from Gracie to Andrew and back, "I'll go have a rest."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When the turbolift doors slid open to reveal the bridge of the _Enterprise_ manned with the skeleton crew it had before it reached Farpoint Station, Jean-Luc Picard took it in stride. He simply stepped from the lift to the bridge and called out, "Report."

"We're nearing the coordinates you gave me, sir," O'Brien said from the Conn.

"Have you detected anything unusual?" Picard knew Q had to be around somewhere. He'd disobeyed orders to return here to the time and place where he first met Q and, damn it all, the omnipotent being had to be present. No one else could be behind this time travel.

"Nothing, sir," Tasha Yar said from her position at Tactical.

The scowl formed on the captain's face before he could mask it. Q had the ability to get under his skin and irritate him like no other living being. "It's the right time, the right place. He should _be_ here." Except there wasn't exactly an established way to contact an omnipotent, petulant being to inform him that he's late. "Q!" he said aloud. "We're here! This has gone on long enough. What sort of game are you playing?"

No answer. Apparently that wasn't the correct method, either. His confidence withered away the longer the silence went on. Finally, he turned to Troi. "Counselor, do you sense an alien presence?"

Her answer came softly. "No, sir."

"This isn't the way it's supposed to happen." He took a long look around the bridge at his confused crew, all wanting to impress their new captain, but all wondering whether their new captain still had all his marbles. "Maintain position here," he said. "I'll be in my ready room." At least while he was out of sight, they wouldn't have to keep looking at him in complete confusion.

When the doors to his ready room opened and he stepped through, he found himself in a courtroom he thought he'd left seven years ago. He should have recognized the men before, for now they all stood around the raised dais, taunting him, jeering at him as if he'd never left in the first place.

"_Mon capitaine_, I thought you'd never get here."

The moment he heard Q's voice for the first time seven years ago, he was already tired of it. At this point, he'd become weary. "Q!" he said. He was nearly shouting. "What's going on?"

The omnipotent being, dressed in judges robes and seated in a chair, floated out of the darkness on said chair. "That's Judge Q to you," he said. "And isn't it quite obvious what's going on?" The air of superiority that exuded from his current chosen corporeal form could've made its own weather system.

Picard did his best to ignore it, as he'd always done after their first encounter. He glared at Q, unafraid. "If it were obvious to me, I wouldn't have asked." He tamped down the frustration that sought to get out, getting angry at Q only made his predicament even more entertaining to him. "The last time I was in this courtroom was seven years ago." _Things were so different then. We were all so young_.

"How little you mortals understand time. Must you be so linear, Jean-Luc?"

The captain could recognize a verbal game of cat and mouse when he saw it. He disliked them in the first place, and he especially disliked them when he was assigned the role of the mouse. As he had been right this moment. So, he refused to play. "Why do I find myself back in this courtroom?"

Q scowled an omnipotent scowl. "The trial never ended, Captain. We never reached a verdict. But, now we have."

The crowd fell silent. Q looked at Picard expectantly, waiting for him to ask what the verdict was.

Picard didn't ask. He kept his glare leveled on Q.

"If case you're wondering, we've found you guilty," Q finished.

"Of what?"

"Of being inferior, of course. Seven years ago I said we'd be watching you, and we have been, hoping your ape-like race would demonstrate some growth. Perhaps even give some indication that your minds have room for expansion. And what have we seen instead?"

Another dramatic pause. The word weary was becoming inadequate for Picard's reaction to Q's melodrama.

"You spending time worrying about Commander Riker's career, listening to Counselor Troi's pedantic psychobabble, indulging Data in his witless exploration of humanity, you even _reproduced..."_

Q's last phrase was uttered with more disgust than Picard had ever him use. He wanted to object strenuously, the being had just insulted his family, but he couldn't, because then he would be playing Q's game. And he wasn't going to.

"I mean, with Red, of all people. Jean-Luc, I thought you had better taste."

_I do_, Picard thought. _Much better taste than _you_. It only shows how little you omnipotent beings know about love and life_. Instead of voicing the opinions he felt most strongly about, he stuck with the logical, not engaging with Q on a personally emotional level. "We have journeyed to countless new worlds, made contact with new species, expanded man's understanding of the universe—"

Q rolled his eyes. "In your own paltry, limited way. You have no idea how far you still have to go."

"We are what we are, and we're doing the best we can. It's not for you to set the standard by which we are judged." History is what would judge them, history and historians, and descendants that would read about what he'd done with his life. And he hoped they would find it satisfactory, or perhaps that he had some sort of positive impact on the universe, however small his influence may have been.

"Oh, but it is. And we have. Time may be eternal, but our patience is not." Q leaned forward on his elbows and studied Picard expectantly.

This time, he would play. He needed to know where Q was going with this so he could solve this time shifting problem. The need for the answer was also personal, even as he tried to keep his personal feelings from being involved. The future he'd visited, he never wanted to see it, and he had to find out if he could make it stop. "Having rendered a verdict, have you decided upon a sentence?" he asked, meeting Q's gaze.

"Indeed." Q inclined his head and motioned upward with both arms, the unruly crowd cheering him on. "It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars. It's time to make room for other, more worthy species."

"We're to be denied travel through space?" Certainly, if that were true, so was the future Q kept sending him to.

Q smirked. "No. You're to be denied existence."

"Q, even you couldn't be capable of such a despicable act." Superior as though Q might act, he seemed to have a certain affinity for humans, even if for an entertainment value that the ancient Greek and Roman gods had given their people. To destroy humanity would be the same as destroying all Q's fun. Or, at least, some of it.

"I? There you go again, blaming me for everything. Well, this time I'm not your enemy. I am not the one who causes the annihilation of mankind." Again, Q smirked. "You are."

Maybe he tried to stop the future he'd seen and somehow that had destroyed humanity. Trying to change things for his own personal whim, he knew better than that. Yet even knowing it would be for the greater good made it hurt no less to know and experience the future as it was. So many people changed for the worse, including himself. And Beverly... "Me?"

"That's right. You're doing it right now. You've already done it. And, you will do it yet again."

"What kind of meaningless double talk is that?" If ever Picard wanted a straight answer, he wanted it then. He didn't want to make the mistake Q was laying at his feet.

Q let out another dramatic sigh and addressed the crowd, a crowd that conveniently fell silent when Q deemed it necessary to speak. "He doesn't understand. I have only myself to blame, I suppose." He turned back to Picard. "I believed in you. I thought you had potential, but apparently I was wrong. May whatever God you believe in have mercy on your soul. This court stands adjourned." Q's floating chair retreated into the depths of darkness behind the crowded stands. Picard watched it disappear.

He jerked awake suddenly, sitting up with a sharp gasp. Beverly moved beside him and placed a hand on his forearm. "What is it?"

Words escaped him. He couldn't even remember what they were. This new development was much harder to take without blinking, as he had when he'd stepped out of the future's turbolift and onto the past's bridge.

"It's happened again, hasn't it?"

He nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Beverly was out of the bed and getting a tricorder to scan him before he had dropped his hand back to his lap. She frowned at the readings. "Same as before."

"I assumed as much."

She set the tricorder on a shelf nearby, then turned back to him. "Can you talk about it?"

He wanted to, he wanted to desperately so that he could throw the hurtling train of time off its tracks, stopping the engine, then switching tracks entirely, towards a future better for all of them. But he couldn't. He questioned all his actions now, now he would be responsibly for destroying humanity. It wasn't just his own future at stake, not just his family's, but everyone's. "No," he said, barely loud enough for it to register above the background thrumming of the warp engines.

Beverly reached out and caressed his cheek. "Is there anything you can share?"

He frowned. "Somehow, I cause the destruction of humanity."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Q," he said.

"That explains everything," she said, then went and pulled a uniform out of a drawer, knowing that there would be another staff meeting.

"Not everything," he said, this time to himself.

She heard him and held his gaze with her blue eyes, communicating her concern. But she didn't question it, she didn't want to push him into contaminating the present with what he knew from the future.

"It's a bigger problem than we thought," Picard said, giving her something. Then he broke eye contact, found a uniform for himself, and dressed quickly. He contacted Riker and had him relay the message to assemble the senior staff as soon as possible. Then together, he and Beverly started out of their quarters, then stopped as a voice called them back.

"Where you off to? Going to save the world again?" Allie asked, leaning against her doorway.

"No," said Beverly. "This time, it's the universe."

Allie gave a small wave of dismissal with her hand. "Oh, the universe. Then by all means, continue. Far be it from me to interrupt that." She got up from the doorway and headed towards the eating area.

The captain noticed that she was dressed. "What are you doing awake?" he asked.

"Maybe you should pay some attention to the time," she replied. "It's 0600. Time to get up."

"Right." It was hard to leave and he couldn't figure out why. But seeing Allie made him wistful, he didn't want to let her out of his sight. But he had to, he had a ship to captain and humanity to save.

He was still thinking about his daughter when they arrived at the conference room. But once his staff started to trickle in, he brought his emotional mask over his entire frame of mind. Once they were all seated, he relayed to them the important points of his interaction with Q and the status of the "trial" they'd all been put on seven years ago.

"I don't believe him," said Geordi. "It's just another one of his games. I bet he's watching us now, getting a great laugh."

Picard wished it were that simple, but something about this situation was different from the others. He recalled when Q had introduced them to the Borg, seen the flash of regret in Q's eyes after the encounter. "I think this time we have to take him at his word," he said. "And that means that in some fashion, I will cause the destruction of humanity."

Beverly frowned. "Didn't Q say you already caused it?"

Troi finished the direction of the doctor's thoughts. "And that you were causing it now?"

Data gave the answer. "Considering that the captain is shifting through all three time periods, the statement, while confusing, could be entirely accurate."

"So what should I do? Lock myself in a room in all three time periods?"

"No," said his first officer. "I mean, what if inaction is what causes the destruction? What if you're locked away in a room somewhere when you're needed on the bridge at a key moment?"

"We can't just start second guessing ourselves," said Deanna. "We'll just have to continue on as we would normally, as if nothing different were happening."

The captain resisting raising an eyebrow at Troi. _Easy for you to say, _you _aren't shifting through three time periods and seeing things you never wanted to see happen in your lifetime._ "Agreed," he said aloud. "And I think Q is somehow lending us a hand in keeping this destruction from occurring. He did admit that he was the one responsible for my time shifting."

Riker's eyes narrowed. "What gives you the idea that he'd want to save humanity?"

Though he felt silly about it, the captain explained his thoughts on the matter. "Q has always had a certain fascination with human beings, specifically with me. I think he takes more than a casual interest in what happens to me."

Data supported his theory. "That's true. Q's interest in you is similar to that of a master and a beloved pet."

Picard glared at Data for voicing exactly why he felt the idea of Q being interested in him especially was silly. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Beverly covering her mouth in silent laughter.

"It was only an analogy, Captain," said Data.

Any further verbal recriminations were interrupted by a call from the bridge. "Captain, we're approaching the Neutral Zone."

With a nod to his staff, they filed out of the conference room and onto the bridge.

"Are there any ships present?" he asked.

Worf, now at Tactical, quickly performed a long range scan. "The Federation ships _Concord _and _Bozeman_ are currently holding position by our side. Four Romulan warbirds are holding position on their size of the Neutral Zone, Captain," said Worf.

"A face-off," Riker said, glancing at Picard with a raised eyebrow. "The question is, who's going to move first?"

Inaction be damned. "We are," said the captain. "Mister Worf, hail the Romulan ships."

"The warbird _Terix_ is responding."

"On screen," he said, turning to face the viewscreen.

Instead of seeing a Romulan officer, Captain Picard had turned from one Worf to another, the one on the viewscreen very much older and time-worn. "Admiral Riker," said the older Worf.

"Have you had a chance to review our request?" Riker asked, straight to the point.

Picard watched intently, hating the feeling of being back in this old, broken down body.

"I have," said Worf. "And I must refuse. It is for your own safety. The Neutral Zone is extremely volatile. There are reports of renegade ships on both the Klingon and Federation sides.

Will scowled. "There must be something you can do."

"I am sorry, but my first duty is to the Empire. I must adhere to regulations."

Taking a page from his daughter's vocabulary, the phrase 'full of shit' went through Picard's mind. There seemed to be inaction in each time period, perhaps that's what caused the destruction. Not a single person committing to a sequence of any action, instead standing around and justifying why doing nothing was the better option. "Maybe I'm just an old man who doesn't understand, but the Worf I knew cared more about things like loyalty and honor than he did rules and regulations. But then, that was a long time ago." He paused and made eye contact with the grizzled Klingon. "Maybe you're not the Worf I knew." The captain knew this would get his old friend. It always did.

As Picard had counted on, Worf let out a particularly nasty Klingon swear. "You have always used your knowledge of Klingon honor and tradition to get what you want from me."

He'd won. "That's because it always works. Your problem, Worf, is that you really do have a sense of honor, you really do care about things like loyalty and trust. Don't blame me because I know you too well." _If only everyone could have a problem as simple as that._

Worf's face looked as if he'd swallowed a significant amount of Terran food. "Very well. You may cross the border. But only if I come with you. I am familiar with the Neutral Zone."

Admiral Riker nodded towards a crewman to have Worf beamed aboard immediately. When the transporter room notified them that Worf was aboard, Riker ordered a course for the Neutral Zone at maximum warp.

Before Riker had even finished his order, Picard found himself in the past with his young crew. A brief, uncomfortable exchange had the ship heading in the same direction as the other two ships, and all too quickly, Picard was in the present again, staring at the viewscreen.

"So Captain," said Tomolok. "How long shall we stare at each other across the Neutral Zone?"

_Until time stands still_. "We're all here for the same reason," the captain said. "The anomaly we're all detecting in the Devron system. I propose we allow one ship from each side into the Neutral Zone to investigate this anomaly."

The Romulan commander chewed over the offer, rubbing his fingers over his lips. "Has Starfleet Command approved this arrangement?"

"No." Forthright honestly always seemed to work best with the Romulans.

Tomolok gave him a smile. "I like it already. I'll see you in the Devron system, captain."

Warp five brought them into the system within a few minutes and Data announced the presence of the anomaly. In the past, O'Brien made the announcement. Eager to see this anomaly that was causing such a huge disruption in time, Picard found himself saying, "On screen! On screen! Let's see it!" much more enthusiastically than he would like.

In either the past or the present, the command would've been taken as any other, after all, the crew wanted to see the anomaly as badly as he did. But unfortunately for him, it was the future that heard his command, the overeager old man on a wild goose chase. And to prove the goose chase theory correct, the viewscreen on the future's _Enterprise_ showed nothing different than normal, empty space.

"There's still nothing to show, Captain," said Data, having requisitioned his old Ops seat from a hapless crewman some time ago. "I've conducted a full sensor sweep out to one light year from the ship. No temporal anomalies, no particle fluctuations, nothing."

Picard frowned at him. "Have you scanned the entire subspace bandwidth?" There had to be some sort of mistake. He'd seen the anomaly himself, large in the present, even larger in the past. It couldn't _not_ be here.

"Yes. The subspace barrier is a little thin in this region of space, but that's not unusual."

He started to pace. "I don't understand. I've seen it in the other two." He noticed Andrew giving him an odd look. "The other two time periods," he said, clarifying. "Why isn't it here?"

Andrew didn't seem especially impressed and started to give a droll answer, but he stopped when movement from Worf's chair caught his attention.

"Admiral Riker," Worf said, looking as alarmed as a Klingon was capable, "I have been monitoring Klingon communication channels. Several warships have been dispatched to this sector to search for a renegade Federation vessel."

As Picard watched Riker take in Worf's new information, he knew that inaction would no longer be a problem, but that instead, an action in the direction opposite of his own ideas would occur. "You're not thinking about leaving?" he asked Will.

The admiral turned to him slowly. "Jean-Luc, there's nothing here."

Part of him felt like it wasn't right for Will to address him by his first name, while the other part, the part that belonged here, insisted that Will had called him Jean-Luc for nigh-on twenty years. "There should be." His words had no impact and he reiterated. "There has to be!" Picard gave up on Riker and turned to another friend. "Data, there must be some other way to scan for temporal disturbances, something that's not covered in a normal sensor sweep."

Data came through, he was a man of right action. "There are several methods of detecting temporal disturbances—"

But Riker cut him off, closing out the android's suggestions but speaking to Picard. "We've done all we can. We should head back to Federation territory."

Picard glowered at his old friend.

Data, however, continued to speak, undaunted by the argument between the other two men. "However, it may be possible to modify the main deflector to emit an inverse tachyon pulse, which could scan beyond the subspace barrier."

"That's it, Data, do tha—"

Worf provided the interruption. "I'm detecting another vessel coming into sensor range. They are hailing us, audio only."

"Let's hear it," said Riker.

Worf tapped a couple of the controls and the distress call spilled out of the hidden speakers on the bridge. _"This is the medical ship _Clara Barton_ requesting emergency evacuation assistance. We have a warp core breach in progress. Breach will occur in thirteen minutes. Repeat..." _The message continued repeating and Riker left it on the speakers for a few more cycles as he ordered the _Enterprise_ to help with the rescue. But Picard didn't hear the orders that were given, or even the message as it cycled over again before Worf cut it off entirely. The voice, the one asking for help, it was Beverly's. He was certain of it.

A look over at his son confirmed his suspicions. The blood had drained from Andrew's normally rosy cheeks and his gray eyes were locked on his father. "Mom," he said, very quietly, but Picard had been listening for it.

As had the others. "We'll get to her in time, Andrew," Riker said.

Picard saw the flash of disbelief in Andrew's eyes and he knew exactly what Andrew was keeping himself from saying: _You didn't get to Allie in time._

And when Jean-Luc found himself knowing what his son was thinking, he remembered why he and Beverly had divorced, why Gracie tolerated him, why Andrew did his best to keep everyone in some sort of contact, why Gabriel just ignored everyone—because the _Enterprise_ hadn't gotten to the shuttle in time, not in time to stop the raiders from triggering the explosion that sent the shuttle's hull into million tiny particles, along with the passengers inside. Fifteen years ago, they were going to rendezvous with that shuttle, and they had, but not in time.

"Admiral, we have reached transporter range."

"Lock onto every life sign you can find and beam them directly to sickbay." Riker triggered the comm. "Sickbay, get ready to receive your patients."

"Acknowledged." It was Gracie who had answered.

"She doesn't know," Andrew said. "Someone's got to tell her, if...I mean..." he gave up explaining his reasoning and headed for the turbolift. Before he stepped inside, he stopped and looked in Picard's direction. "Aren't you coming?"

The captain glanced over at the viewscreen, at Data, at Riker. He had to get Riker to stay here in the Devron system, he couldn't risk Riker leaving while he went down to sickbay to...he wasn't even sure what he would do down there. He'd be in the way, certainly. It wasn't as if Beverly would speak to him, or if he was even sure he could bring himself to speak to her. Or that Andrew and Gracie would only become more upset at watching their parents yet again hurt one another because both were too stubborn to give in and admit they were wrong.

_No, Beverly was right. I was wrong. I should have told her a long time ago._

But he hadn't time for that now. He had to save humanity, even though he'd lost touch with his own.

"Dad?"

All his explanations went through his mind, but he didn't bother to say any of them. They were all weak and there was no point in making it painfully obvious to everyone, not that it wasn't already. "No," he said.

"And you wonder why Mom left you," Andrew said, then finished stepping through the entryway of the turbolift and allowed the doors to close behind him.

"I always knew why," Picard whispered to himself. The rest of the people on the bridge heard him, but all kept their silence, because cast over them all was the shadow of what had been.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"You always knew what, Captain?"

Jean-Luc Picard blinked and focused on the console in front of him. He was down in Engineering, working with Data and Geordi on modifying the deflectors to emit the inverse tachyon beam. Though he couldn't completely remember getting there. Now he was starting to keep clear memories of where he'd been and what had occurred in those times, and getting the last image out of his head, Andrew allowing the turbolift doors to close them off from one another, was proving difficult.

_Oh god, Allie. What happened to Allie?_

"Captain?"

He blinked again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Data. What were you saying?"

"That we are ready to initiate the tachyon pulse, sir."

"Well, then, make it so."

La Forge and Data entered a few commands and they watched on one of the smaller viewscreens as the thin beam streamed out from the ship's deflector shield and into the anomaly. "Okay, the pulse is holding steady, we're starting to receive data from the scan," said the chief engineer, his attention already back to the terminal.

"It will take some time for the computer to give us a complete picture of the anomaly's interior. I suggest we—" Data stopped talking as Geordi reached up and held the side of his head.

"Whoa." La Forge stumbled backwards a bit, his other hand moving up to his head as well.

"What's wrong?" Data asked.

"It's like somebody's putting an ice pick through my temples," came Geordi's strained reply. "My VISOR is picking up all sorts of electromagnetic distortions." He staggered back towards the main control table and nearly fell over, but Data managed to catch him in time.

Knowing his second officer had faster reflexes, Picard didn't try to catch Geordi, but hit his communicator as Data caught the chief engineer. "Picard to Sickbay. Medical emergency in main engineering." He looked to make sure Data and Geordi were ready. "Picard to transporter room three, three to beam directly to Sickbay."

They materialized in the middle of the main room of sickbay and already, the nurses, techs, and doctors were around them. Beverly went immediately to Geordi and helped her nurses get him onto a biobed. The captain managed to catch Alyssa Ogawa giving her chief medical officer a dirty look that Beverly ignored. He knew why—Beverly was supposed to be taking it easy and letting others do the lifting. Beverly, of course, continued to ignore that advice, saying she's had enough children to know when she wouldn't be able to do things for herself or wouldn't be able to do things to help others. Even as Ogawa glared at her boss, she handed over a tricorder and Beverly started to scan La Forge.

Satisfied that Geordi wasn't in any acute danger, Beverly had him sit up, take off his VISOR, and place his head into another scanner designed especially for Geordi's optics. Data had gone to another terminal, presumably to watch the information continue to flow from the tachyon pulse.

"Captain, come have a look at this," Beverly said, not looking up from her close study of Geordi's sightless eyes. He walked over and she continued talking, knowing he was within earshot. "Look at his eyes, you can see the difference yourself."

The captain leaned over and looked and saw exactly what she meant. Normally, Geordi's eyes were entirely white, bumps showing where a person would generally have a pupil and iris, but his had always been white, and never able to see. "Yes, I can see the iris," he said. And he could. For the first time since he'd known the younger man, he could see the faint dark outline of an actual iris.

"This is amazing," Beverly said, her attention going from the scanner, to the readouts, to Geordi's face and back. "The DNA in his optic nerves is being regenerated. It's as if he were growing new eyes."

Geordi shrugged. "I guess that's why I started to feel pain. My optical cortex was falling out of alignment with my VISOR."

Picard frowned. Things, especially DNA, didn't just start spontaneously regenerating. "How is this possible?" he asked, his displeasure evident in the tone of his voice.

"It shouldn't be possible at all. There's no medical explanation for the spontaneous regeneration of an organ." Beverly was now frowning herself. She had a puzzle on her hands and couldn't begin to even think of where to start in cracking it. There was also the matter of her friend and patient being in pain that she couldn't stop, not if Geordi wanted to continue to be able to see.

Ogawa stepped between them and handed the doctor another padd. "Doctor, we've just gotten reports from two crewmembers who say they have injuries," the nurse paused, knowing what she was saying was unbelievable, but having to continue anyway. "...which are healing themselves."

While Picard, Geordi, and Beverly looked at Alyssa in shock, Data turned around. "I believe I may have a partial explanation, Captain. I have completed my analysis of the anomaly. It appears to be a multi-phasic temporal convergence in the space-time continuum."

Beverly cast her frown on Data. "In Standard, please."

"It is, in essence, an eruption of anti-time."

Though the newly chosen words were more universally understood compared to theoretical physics, the essence of what they meant still didn't make much sense. "Ant-time?" Picard asked. Beverly was no slouch in the science department and Picard did his best to keep up as well. But Data had an ability to understand temporal mechanics better than most sentient beings. Often, it took longer for Data to be able to communicate his realization than it took him to come to it in the first place.

"A relatively new concept in temporal mechanics," said Data. "The relationship of anti-time to normal time is analogous to the relationship of anti-matter to normal matter."

The captain's gray eyes went wide as he grasped the concept. This could be one of the clues. In fact, it had to be. "So if time and anti-time were to collide..."

"They would annihilate each other," Data finished for him. "And would create a rupture in space. I believe this is what has happened in the Devron System. The rupture may be sending out waves of temporal energy which are disrupting the normal flow of time."

Beverly tapped the padd Alyssa had given her on the counter beside her seat. "Then it's possible the DNA molecules in Geordi's optic nerves aren't regenerating themselves," she said, more to herself than to the others present. "They might be reverting to their original state."

"You mean his eyes are getting younger?" Picard asked.

She looked up at him, frowning again. "It would seem so."

He resisted the urge to pace. "So the temporal anomaly has certain rejuvenating effects. It certainly doesn't sound like the destruction of humanity." Then his own frown returned. "Then again, things that seem fortunate can often turn out to be rather unfortunate." He looked away from his wife and to his second officer. "Data, what could have caused this collision between time and anti-time?"

"Anti-time, sir?" Data asked, looking up from his work on an Engineering panel, his uniform now lacking a stand up collar, and the entire jumpsuit now fitting quite snugly.

Holding in a curse at being continually moved from time to time, Picard explained the theory the present-Data had surmised to the past-Data. "I believe that if we modify the deflector to send out an inverse tachyon pulse, you'll find that the anomaly is a rupture between time and anti-time."

"That is fascinating," said Data. "How did you formulate—"

"We haven't time for me to explain. Begin the modifications and send out the pulse. Once you've done that, start working on a theory as to what could have caused this rupture." Without waiting for acknowledgment, the captain turned to O'Brien. "How large is the anomaly?"

There was a pause as the chief made some calculations. "About four hundred million kilometers, sir."

"I don't understand why it's larger here," he said to himself. Things were supposed to grow forward, not backward. That's how things got larger. It was something you learned before you even knew you were capable of learning. "Maintain position," he said, then strode into his ready room again, seeking out a way from this puzzle. When the doors opened, it wasn't Q that he found waiting for him, it was Gracie.

They were on the future's _Enterprise_, in Riker's ready room. The young woman had seated herself on the sofa, her long legs tucked underneath her.

And immediately, Picard knew his daughter was pissed at him. Briefly, he wished it were Q sitting there and not Gracie. He felt like her gray eyes were pinning him to the wall and he had nowhere to run, even if he could manage to squirm out of their hold. "What?" he said, sounding more gruff than he meant to, but he wasn't about to take it back.

Gracie's reply was to fling the padd she held in her hands in his direction. He managed to catch it before it hit him in the head, even with his slowed reaction time of this era. Obviously, she wasn't going to talk until he read the information. With a sigh, he looked at the readout: the _Clara Barton_ had lost all of her crew, save three. He looked up at her sharply, the question in his eyes.

"You'll be happy to know that Mom was one of the survivors," Gracie said, as if she had been waiting for his question.

And she had, because she'd set him up for it. He knew a trap when he saw one and his daughter had sprung hers already, the jaws just hadn't fully closed yet. He waited, because whether he spoke or not, it was going to hurt. No one could hurt you like those whom you loved.

"She was seeing another doctor in the organization, you know," she said. "Caleb Ross. He was a nice man, I met him a few times. A very good doctor, he's the once that convinced Mom to help in the medical relief effort for Romulus. Of course, the Klingons objected to it, and they had to resort to becoming renegades, functioning in some quasi-legal capacity as a medical corps without any political affiliations, without borders of their own. Overall, very idealistic." She paused and gave him a significant look. "The sort of idealism that you used to espouse." The redheaded doctor got up from her seat and went to one of the two windows. "Anyway, that doesn't matter anymore, because he's dead."

"I'm sorry," he said immediately. And he was. While the jealousy still itched under his skin, he could rationally understand that Beverly had found someone who cared for her, and that was something he couldn't begrudge her. "Do you think she loved him?"

"I don't think she had enough time with him to find out," Gracie said, turning back to face him. "She's pretty upset. Andrew's with her now. Not only did she lose Caleb, but they've lost their last ship. Basically, their entire organization is gone and she's got to find something else to do with her life." Another pause, this time she crossed her arms with it. "Again."

"You're upset with me," he said. He knew it would set her off and make her talk, but he wanted to have it out with her, so they'd stop playing this game of not really saying what was on their minds.

"You're damn right I am," she replied. "You haven't got many years left in you, of being able to think clearly more often than you can't. Your illness is progressing rapidly, I've seen the most recent scans. You need to face reality before you're incapable of doing so. There's a woman down in my sickbay whom you loved at one point in your life, and I'm not quite sure you ever stopped, or if she ever stopped loving you. At the very least, I know you care about her. This woman you care about has just lost nearly everything in the life she's rebuilt for herself after the accident. And you don't seem fazed by it, instead you insist on this delusion that you've got to somehow save the galaxy and stay up here on the bridge to try and do it."

He wished he could tell her that he cared very much and wanted the chance to right the wrongs he'd done. But time had gotten away from him, and was getting away even as they spoke to each other. "You have to understand, the stakes here are enormous. Q has said that all of humanity will be destroyed."

Gracie bit her lip as she studied the deck under her feet. When she looked up, the anger had gone from her eyes. "You need to consider the possibility that none of what you're saying is real."

"What?" She did think him to be a blathering idiot. They all must, letting him go on as he had, letting Jean-Luc Picard have one last adventure before his mind wasted away entirely.

"You have advanced Irumodic Syndrome. We all have have to consider the possibility that everything you're saying is in your mind. Including this business about Q being involved."

"This isn't some delusion of grandeur," he said. "I'm not on my last hurrah."

Gracie reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You don't think so now, but you won't know that it is until it's too late. You're Jean-Luc Picard, and if it were anyone else, Admiral Riker wouldn't have brought this ship out here. You need to remember that, and remember who you are, and what things you need to take care of before you've run out of time."

The deck lurched underneath them and she tipped forward, almost into him. He caught her by the upper arms and then put her back on her feet. "What was that?" he asked.

"Must be the Klingons," she said, heading through the door to the bridge.

Picard followed, stumbling a bit as the ship took another hit.

"All right, let's get out of here," Riker said to the Conn officer.

"No!" the captain shouted. He didn't give a damn anymore what they all thought of the old man, it didn't matter if he could get them to stay put. "We have to save humanity!"

The admiral ignored him. "Lay in a course for the Federation, maximum warp."

Picard moved forward, standing in front of the taller man. "Will, don't leave, we have to stay here and find the cause of the temporal anomaly." He'd resorted to begging.

Riker looked down at him, his light blue eyes not angry, but filled with pity. "Captain, we can't stay."

The old man grabbed Riker's biceps, holding them tight, almost shaking the other man. "We have to! Everything depends on it! We can't leave now, please listen to me!" The hysteria he felt at losing control made its way into his voice.

For a moment, Will didn't say anything, he seemed to be looking past the older man. Then Picard realized something else must be going on, but by then, it was too late to do anything, because the hypospray was already on him, and he lost consciousness before the hiss had even stopped.

Then he walked smack into an ensign in the corridor right outside of sickbay. He noted the uniform, the feel of this body, the feel of the ship itself. The present, he was home. Except he didn't feel settled in the least, instead urgency ran through him, more acute than the idea of all of humanity being destroyed. He'd gotten the summons when he was on the bridge, Selar had contacted him, said in her measured Vulcan tones that he was needed in sickbay, there was a medical emergency with his wife.

Not his chief medical officer, not the doctor, not one of the senior staff, but Selar had referred to Beverly just like that, as his wife. Irrational fear had taken over his body.

_Something's wrong with the baby._

The ensign staggered back a little bit, excused himself, and made his getaway. Picard barely registered the entire interaction and walked through the doors to sickbay. Somewhere in his mind, he noticed Geordi still in a biobed, now sedated because of the pain they couldn't stop. But it was a footnote in his mind as he made eye contact with Beverly, who was laying on another one of the beds.

She broke it, looking down at a padd she held in her hand. The hand trembled.

His feet forgot to continue walking as his mind came up with the worst thing it could imagine: _we've lost the baby._

Then Selar was next to him, explaining the situation to him in low tones. "The fetus has genetically regressed past the initial stage of development."

He shook his head, trying to clear the haze of the nightmare. "What? What do you mean?" Learning nothing from the Vulcan's impassive face, he turned back towards where Beverly lay.

She didn't look up from the padd, but Alyssa made her way over to him, placed a hand gently on his arm. "Beverly lost the baby."

_From life to death in an instant. _In that instant, this entire charade Q had put him in about saving humanity became intensely personal. The omnipotent being had taken something away from him and Beverly that couldn't be replaced, a life they had created together. Anger coursed through him, but he had to force it down so that Beverly wouldn't think he was angry with _her_. Alyssa had somehow faded away, Selar with her.

Beverly didn't look up until he was beside her, reaching out to take the padd from her hands. "Jean-Luc," she said. "I think it's the same thing that happened to Geordi. Somehow, the temporal energy from the anomaly caused the fetal tissue to revert to an earlier stage of development. It was as if the unborn child began to grow younger, until finally the DNA itself began to break down."

She wasn't engaging with him at all, unwilling to acknowledge what had happened on any sort of emotional level. She'd gone to full-on doctor mode, cold and clinical and it was somehow more disturbing than Selar's normal bedside manner. Vulcans were meant for it, trained on it, so their impassiveness wasn't as chilling as Beverly was acting at that moment. "How are you?" he asked, emphasizing the 'you.'

"As a whole, our cellular structures appear to be coalescing. They're reverting to earlier structures. In some cases, this has caused old injuries to be healed, but that's only a temporary effect. Eventually, this could kill us all."

"How are you?" he asked again. What she was saying, he understood that, he knew that the anomaly waspart of Q's plot, that if he couldn't solve the enigma, he would fail them all.

"Physically, I'm fine for now. But if this temporal reversion continues, I don't think any of us are going to be fine much longer."

Gently, he removed the padd from her hands. "How are you?"

"I'm sorry," she said, then bit her lip, losing the battle with the emotional control.

"Hey." He brought his hands up to her cheeks, caressing them with his thumbs. "Look at me. Please." One of his thumbs caught a tear and he leaned down and kissed it away from her cheek. "Don't blame yourself. Don't. Please."

"It's already a different future now," she said, her voice hoarse, so much so that he barely heard her. "I'm sorry."

Alyssa appeared again, hypospray in hand. "Doctor, you need to rest."

"I'm fine," she said, the mask she'd learned from being a physician falling into place.

"Beverly," the captain said. "Rest. Please." Ogawa pressed the hypo to Beverly's neck and helped to lay back onto the biobed. "I love you," he whispered to her, hoping she heard him before she was out. He kissed her forehead, then got out of sickbay as quickly as his feet could carry him, wanting to get away from those sympathetic looks from Ogawa and the others.

He allowed himself the time he had in the turbolift to brood, before he had to put all his personal emotions back in their box so he could dedicate himself to the task at hand. Beverly had been right, there would be a different future now, one even more of a nightmare than the one he kept visiting in the here and now. Or perhaps his future self was delusional enough to believe that their youngest son existed, and the reason he never saw him was because the boy only existed in his demented mind.

No wonder his future friends and family didn't believe anything he said. He'd conjured up a son that didn't exist in order to wipe away failures of the past. Failures that were now his present, in realizing that they would never come to know their son, that he was gone before he'd even arrived, and time had become so insistent that there wouldn't even be time to mourn.

He leaned back against the turbolift wall, allowed his fists to punch behind him, just once. It wouldn't be enough, but somehow he knew that nothing would be enough to make the emptiness go away. More than before, he didn't want this responsibility that Q had given him, making him be the one responsible for both destroying, and if possible, saving humanity. Gracie was right, Jean-Luc Picard didn't have to come to everyone's rescue. It could all be the old Picard's delusion, even this moment now in the turbolift. After all, the old man's past was littered with failures. Not being able to save his unborn son, not being able to reach Allie in time. Just as their son's DNA had regressed to its most minute components, Allie's cells had also regressed in that accident. Dust everywhere, a cloud of it hanging in space, the bodies of those lost could only be identified by DNA fragments caught on tiny particles. They had all been vaporized, vanished in an instant, an instant that no one had been able to stop.

Meaningless, it was all meaningless. Old Jean-Luc was just looking to find some meaning to it all, that he was on a crusade to save humanity, because long ago, he'd lost his own near a rupture of anti-time.

The 'lift doors opened and Picard stepped out, walking directly into Deanna Troi. Unlike the ensign on the lower deck, Deanna didn't stumble back, make an apology, and practically run to get out of his sight. Instead, she stood and studied him with her dark, luminescent eyes. Her knowing eyes. "Captain?"

"You should, um...you should probably go down to sickbay, I think you're needed." The reality hit him over the head again and he did his best to keep himself looking upwards. "Beverly will need to speak with you." He wouldn't let himself cry, there wasn't time for that. The time for mourning would be later, if there _was_ a later.

"Are you sure you don't?" Troi asked, not moving, not letting him pass.

"I don't have time," he said.

She frowned and he knew she was going to press him, making him talk about things he wasn't ready to talk about, things he still didn't want to consider being real. So he didn't engage. "Mister Data," he said, turning to look down at the Ops station. "How long until we've finished the entire tachyon scan?"

Data swiveled around in his chair. "One hour and forty-five minutes, sir."

The captain nodded, continuing to ignore the counselor standing in front of him. "Good. Once it's completed, I want you to find a way to dissipate the anomaly without making it worse. Give me a risk analysis on whatever solution you come up with."

"Yes, sir." The android swung back around and back to task.

"Captain."

Keeping the mask on his face, Picard turned to face Troi again. "Once you're done in sickbay, I want you to send an inquiry to Starbase Twenty-three, they're the nearest outpost. Have them begin checking their personnel for any signs of temporal reversion."

"Temporal reversion?"

"The anti-time eruption has begun to cause organic cells to revert to earlier forms," Data said, swinging around again. "As the rupture grows, the effects of reversion should be felt across a greater part of the quadrant. Finding the extent of the reversion and how far the reversion takes cells backwards will help to determine the danger this anomaly poses to this area of space and beyond. If the anomaly's effects are truly subversive and widespread, it's possible that it could prevent life forms from beginning their existence."

_Or returning a life from whence it came_. Picard closed his eyes.

"Captain?"

He opened them. "You have your orders. I'll be in my ready room and...I'm not to be disturbed."

Troi gave one more attempt. "Captain, I think—"

"I think, Counselor, that you have your orders and you should be carrying them out," he said. "Dismissed." Then the captain turned away from her and strode into his ready room. He half expected Deanna to follow, but no footsteps sounded behind him. Already, he was getting some good practice at pushing people away, like the old Jean-Luc, the master of it. When she didn't come through the door, he allowed himself to go to the lone window and study the anomaly with the naked eye. To study his enemy, no longer was it merely a difficult puzzle.

"That's a pretty big decision, Jean-Luc," said Q.

Picard didn't turn around. He could see Q's reflection in the window and didn't feel like facing him at the moment, less so than usual.

"Surely not the type of decision you should be undertaking at a time like this, under such emotional stress." More and more taunts.

He decided to reply, but kept his eyes on the enemy outside instead of the one standing in his ready room. "Q, you have taken something away from me that cannot be replaced. I am not in the mood for any more of your taunts. Nor am I in the mood for any more of your guessing games, mock trials, or plays. We are not to be your playthings in your version of the start of the Trojan War. I'm not playing anymore. I refuse to follow you in your frolic through time in a practical joke on humanity and myself that you, and only you, find amusing." He turned around, all his anger pouring into the hardened stare he laid on Q. "Go find yourself another mortal to be your marionette."

Q drew his face into a pout. "Oh, boohoo, Jean-Luc experiences one little death in his life and now he wants to take his ball and go home."

Picard found himself so angry that all rational thought, all thought entirely, departed his mind. He couldn't recall how to speak or even what verbal communication was anymore.

"After all, isn't that what you mortals pride yourself on? How short your lifespans are, how you have to make the most of it while you're around?" Q twirled his fingers around in a pointless illustration of nothing. "Because without death, you don't know how to truly experience life." The immortal being stepped in close to the captain, almost nose to nose with him. "Am I right or am I right?"

Words found him again as the captain refused to give in to his baser instincts to hit the other being. "There is a difference between when a mortal doesn't get the chance to get past the starting line and when a mortal trips over the third or fourth hurdle. My son never even got into the starting blocks."

Q clapped his hands on Picard's shoulders. "You're getting it now, Jean-Luc!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Q's game had taken another turn, and while the captain had stopped playing, Q hadn't let him off the track yet.

"Why, the destruction of mankind, of course." At Picard's confused look, Q snapped his fingers. "Perhaps another perspective will do."

A moment of disorientation, a flash of light, and Picard found himself standing on the shore of a primordial ocean. In the sky above him, the anomaly took up nearly all of it, stretching from horizon to horizon.

"Welcome home," said Q.

"Home?"

"Don't you recognize your old stomping grounds? This is Earth—France. About, oh, three and a half billion years ago, give or take an eon or two. Smells awful, doesn't it?" Q made a show of sniffing the air. "All that sulfur and volcanic ash. I really must speak to the maid."

Bewilderment had distracted the captain from his frustration and anger, but now they both found their way back. "Is there a point to all this?"

Q pointed to the sky.

"I noticed."

"You'll be happy to know that at this point in history, the anomaly has filled this entire quadrant of your galaxy." He smiled.

He'd been right, the anomaly was getting larger the further back in time he went. Data had been right as well, anti-time moved in a direction opposite of time. One forwards, another backwards, the present being tugged around in the middle. Picard was brought out of his thoughts by Q's excited voice.

"Oh! Come here, I want to show you something." The immortal knelt at the shoreline, peering into the ooze. "You see, this is you."

The captain raised an eyebrow.

"I'm serious. Right here, life is about to form on this planet for the very first time. A group of amino acids is about to combine and form the first protein, the building blocks of what you call 'life.' I'm sure you're familiar with the other aspects of the process. Wasn't it just some of your DNA combined with Red's that unspiraled itself due to the anomaly?"

He didn't answer.

"Strange, isn't it, Jean-Luc? Everything you know, your entire civilization, it all begins right here in this little pond of goo. It's appropriate somehow, isn't it? Too bad you didn't bring a microscope. This is quite fascinating."

The captain couldn't help but look even though all he saw was primordial soup dripping from Q's fingers.

"Here they go. the amino acids are moving closer...closer...closer...oh!" He stopped his commentary and looked up at Picard. "Nothing happened! You see what you've done?"

"Three pulses...from three time periods...all converging at one point in space." Slowly, he looked at Q as the other being stood up. "You mean I caused the anomaly, and the anomaly in some way, disrupted the beginning of life on Earth. Just as it did with the beginning of my son's."

Q smiled. "Congratulations, Papa."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

When Beverly Picard came to, she could remember most of what had happened, the cloaking device losing power, the Klingon attack squadron bearing down on them, the yelling and shouting as the torpedoes impacted and exploded along the hull. In one of the two large sickbays, Beverly had gotten two of the Romulan patients and moved them into an isolation room, where if the hull was penetrated, they would still be protected because of how those rooms were constructed. Another impact sent them all to the ground, then there was another, another, then nothing. She had been able to access the ship's status on the terminal in the room and found the warp core breach in progress. It wasn't until after she'd sent the emergency signal that she allowed the other ship information to register—the hull had been breached in several places and there was no M-class environment stable in any part of the ship except the observation room.

They were all dead. She had assumed she and her two patients would be next, because if the Klingons heard the message, they would come back to finish them off. And she'd sent the message on the slim hope that some Federation ship would be out there.

So when she and her patients were rescued, she was surprised as hell. The surprise switched to total shock when she found herself materializing in a sickbay that felt very familiar to her, once she had spent nearly fifteen years running. Her injuries were only superficial, so the medical officers concentrated on re-stabilizing the Romulan patients. With only a quick glance to her mother, Gracie had joined in with the others working with the Romulans. Beverly understood.

A nurse escorted Beverly to one of the empty biobeds and then went to the assignment list to find a free doctor. Impatient and knowing her injuries were nothing significant, Beverly opened one of the drawers near her bed and pulled out a tricorder and protoplaser. One of the nurses saw her and ran over. "You aren't to be doing that yourself," she said.

Beverly studied the woman deigning to tell her what to do. She couldn't have been more than twenty. "Young lady," she said, "I've been a doctor for more years than you've been alive. I'm perfectly capable of healing a few cuts and bruises."

The nurse reached for the plaser. "It isn't standard operating procedure."

Beverly took it back. "I didn't say it was. Now go away and find yourself someone else to hassle."

"I'll have to ask you to give that back," the nurse said.

"And I'll have to say no. Don't you have something useful to do other than bother an old woman?"

"Picard!"

Both Beverly and the nurse, as well as the rest of the sickbay, turned in the direction of the shout. It had been the chief medical officer, Dr. Malcolm, who'd shouted. Except he wasn't speaking to Beverly, he was talking to the young doctor who stood across the exam table from him.

He pointed Gracie in her mother's direction. "Go fix up your mother," he said. "I can take care of these people."

"Have you forgotten that I did my internship and then spent five years working at the Federation medical detachment on Romulus?" Gracie asked. "There isn't any other doctor in Starfleet who has as much experience with Romulans as I do. If anyone should be treating—"

The chief medical officer interrupted and finished Gracie's statement his own way. "Your _mother_, it should be you. We're stabilizing them, not diagnosing them. I think we can handle it and I don't think anyone else in here is capable of handling your mother."

"And just what makes you think I am?"

Malcolm stopped what he was doing and turned to face Gracie. "Doctor. I have worked with you for three years. Let's just say I have confidence in your abilities." Beverly did her best to keep from smiling. She'd known Dr. Malcolm since her early days just out of medical school.

With a parting glare, she turned and walked towards the biobed where her mother sat. Then she fixed her glare on her mother. To Beverly, it was like looking in a mirror, seeing herself as she must have been when she was a new doctor in Starfleet, so determined and willful. Gracie had grown to look so much like her, the only indication of her father being her eyes. And those eyes were made of steel right now, full of ire directed towards her mother.

"Honestly," Gracie said, snatching the plaser from Beverly before she'd even realized the younger woman had moved. "Do you have to use that bitter old crone act when you want to get your way? Couldn't you just ask nicely? I know you're capable of it, because whenever you aren't a patient, you're perfectly pleasant."

"Hi, nice to see you. How are you doing?" Beverly asked.

Gracie sighed and hugged her mother. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you."

"Yes, you did."

Another sigh. "Right. I did mean to snap at you, but I meant to say hello first." She lifted Beverly's arm and went to fixing the large contusion that was on most of her forearm. "Your ship was destroyed," she said. "I thought you should know."

"I knew it would. I'm okay with it."

Finished with the arm, Gracie looked up, an eyebrow raised. "Are you really?"

"For now, anyway." Beverly looked around sickbay, avoiding looking at her daughter. "It's been a long time since I've been on this ship." She frowned. "And what the hell is this ship doing in Klingon space?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," said Gracie.

Beverly crossed her arms. "Well, now I'm intrigued."

"No, you're avoiding thinking about what happened. I know what that project meant to you and I know about Caleb. We just talked about both last week. I forget things, but not that quickly."

"_And_ I'm intrigued."

Gracie tossed the tricorder and plaser back into the drawer. "I told you, you won't believe me."

"Tell me anyway."

Her daughter started to explain but stopped when the sickbay doors opened and Andrew came bursting through them. He skidded to a halt when he saw the two of them. "Oh, you're okay."

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" The last person she expected to see on the _Enterprise _was her son. No, second to last. There was on other person she never expected to see again, much less on the _Enterprise_. As for Andrew, she'd last seen him only three weeks ago on Romulus, when her medical team had been dispatched to his dig site to take care of some of the Romulans who'd fallen in with what they called the Kronos plague. He hadn't given her any indication that he was planning on leaving the archeological site anytime in the near future. The permit had been too hard to come by to leave the planet for any length of time.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said. "Good to see you." Her tall son leaned over and kissed her forehead, then drew her into a tight hug.

Beverly noticed that Gracie was exchanging a look with her brother at the same time. Slightly, Andrew shook his head in response. Before she had a chance to call them out on what they were keeping from her, Gracie snapped, "I'm going to kill him," then grabbed a padd and stormed out of sickbay.

Eyes trailing after her, Beverly asked, "What was that about?"

Andrew sat down heavily in the chair next to the biobed. "Dad's on board."

"Andrew Picard. It isn't nice to try and fool an old lady."

He looked at her steadily. "I told you that you wouldn't believe me." He frowned. "And you aren't that old, either. _Him_, on the other hand, _he's_ older than dirt and cantankerous enough for two people his age. Besides, who else would Gracie attempt to kill without so much as a second thought?" Andrew cut off his mother's impending dry remark by adding, "Aside from me."

_Jean-Luc_. He really was here on the _Enterprise_. She hadn't seen him in nearly fifteen years, not since she'd left him. Except she still didn't think she had been the one to leave. He had left first, when he withdrew from all of them. When she physically left, she'd just been closing the book. For a long time, she didn't think about him. She forced herself not to. Years went by and the only reminders she had were from her children, whenever they got a certain look on their face, or even just dug in and held their ground with her on any issue. Always, she would love him, but she couldn't stand the person he had become. Eventually she moved on, at least partially. Things hadn't gone very quickly with Caleb, he would always complain that she had a shadow behind her and he couldn't figure out who that shadow was. So for the most part, they had remained friends, dating ever so slowly, because he didn't want a full relationship until the shadow had gone.

But Beverly knew it wouldn't. The shadow was Allie, she stayed with them all, even after all this time. Then Gracie had contacted her about Jean-Luc's illness, and she'd found herself angry with him all over again, for giving up like he had. And now he'd suffer through this illness and die a lonely old man, because he chose to. Then she'd become angry with herself for caring about him and feeling badly that he would be alone. When she saw Andrew on Romulus, she'd told him, he had a right to know what was happening to his father. She didn't, however, think that Andrew would drop everything and go back to Earth to speak with him.

"Why did you visit him?" she asked.

Andrew shrugged. "I wanted to see him." At her look, he explained further. "I'm not sure why I went, exactly. Maybe I went to tell him he was an idiot. Maybe I thought that with this illness, he could finally admit how much of an idiot he was and make amends for it. I also wanted to see...to see how far gone he was." He ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. "But I think he's way more gone than any of us thought." Andrew stood up and started walking towards a terminal. "I know Gracie's got the latest scan results around here somewhere."

"Andrew, those are locked medical files. You'll have to wait until Gracie comes back to get access to them."

He flashed her a grin. "I think I can get access to them."

Beverly couldn't help but smile and laugh as Andrew utilized a skill his twin sister had taught him long ago. Once she'd explained to him that he was good looking, and after teasing him about it, she told him how he could use it to get information that otherwise couldn't be gotten. And as Beverly watched him in sickbay now, Andrew managed to sweet talk the nurse who'd harangued her earlier into downloading a copy of the scan results onto a padd for him. She was still smiling when he handed her the padd. "It's moments like those when I wish again that you'd settle down," she said.

"I don't have time," he replied. "Bug someone else if you want grandchildren."

Her smile faded as she read the padd. Jean-Luc didn't have much time left. Usually, Irumodic Syndrome could take years, even decades, before it became this symptomatic. But seeing the neural degeneration, Jean-Luc had only scant months left. "You still haven't told me why you're here on the _Enterprise_ with him," she said, looking over at her son.

"Funny thing, that," said Andrew. "He thinks he's causing the destruction of humanity. Or Q is causing it and helping him fix it. Or...you know, I'm still not exactly sure what the entire story is."

"He probably isn't either," she said. "How many people are involved in this? Are you all just entertaining a flighty of fancy for him?"

Andrew scowled. "No. There might be some grain of truth in it. At least, Data seems to think so, though with all the scans coming up negative, he isn't too sure anymore." The deck shuddered underneath them. "Bet you the Klingons are back."

"Probably the same squadron that attacked my ship," Beverly whispered.

The deck shuddered again, but it was a different kind, not as sudden. "We've gone into warp," Andrew said, an observation made easily from a child who spent a good part of his life on starships. "Dad's going to be pissed."

"Exactly how does your father think he's going to save humanity?" Beverly asked, then listened closely as her son explained the previous events that lead up to them being in the Devron system. Once he'd finished explaining, he frowned and looked around.

"It's been awhile since Gracie disappeared," he said, then asked the computer for her location. The answer, turbolift four, deepened his frown. "I'm going to go find her before she _actually_ kills him," He looked at her. "You'll be okay?"

"I got along perfectly fine before you were born and after you struck out on your own, I'll do just fine while you go keep your sister from committing a felony."

He rolled his eyes and was out the door.

"It seems you've been abandoned," someone commented.

Beverly turned around to see that her old friend Dr. Malcolm had finished with her two Romulan patients. "Not abandoned. They'll come back. They're just easily distracted."

Malcolm chuckled. "Only when they want to be. Gracie tends to become singly focused when she's got some sort of puzzle she can't figure out. If I didn't have the nurses on standing orders to start harassing her after she's been in sickbay or the lab for more than twelve hours, I don't think she'd bother sleeping. Reminds me of another young doctor I once knew."

"We were never that young, Mal." But she smiled in spite of her comment. Malcolm had been one of the other two residents assigned to Dr. Quaice for their post-graduate residency. They'd gone through many trying clinic shifts together and had honed their skills in tormenting the other.

"Maybe _you_ weren't, you bitter old hag."

She glared at him when she realized he was out of striking distance and had done that on purpose, a lesson he'd learned long ago after his arm started developing bruises from her well-placed punches to it in retaliation for his comments. Then she sighed. "Is she all right?"

"She's a fantastic doctor. Brilliant diagnostician, researcher, has a wonderful bedside manner. She'll be taking over for me when I retire, I'm sure of it."

Beverly listened to the praise, very proud of her daughter and her accomplishments, but Mal wasn't giving the information she needed to hear. Everything he was saying, she already knew. Most of Starfleet knew that Grace Picard was a rising star in Medical. She'd been that way since her graduation, hitting the ground already at a full-out sprint, volunteering for the newly established internship on Romulus. All in all, Gracie seemed to everyone composed, collected, the epitome of a young Starfleet officer. But Beverly knew better, and she knew better because she knew who Gracie's parents were. At this stage in her life, Gracie was very much her father's daughter, and it frightened Beverly. Jean-Luc hadn't allowed himself to come out from behind the protective walls of his buried emotions until the middle of his life. And then when things took a nasty turn, he'd retreated back into them. The very thing Gracie had gotten angry with her father for, she was doing right now in her own life.

Malcolm sighed as well. "I know. That isn't what you're looking for." He studied her for a moment. "And you're shifting the focus to her right now and away from yourself."

"So shut up about that and help me focus on my daughter instead of how I just lost everything I've worked for in the past ten years."

He crossed his arms. "I never once questioned where she got her attitude, you know."

"You never met her father," Beverly said, before she could stop herself. It'd been a long time since she'd made a comment like that to anyone. Yet as soon as Andrew had started telling her the story of how he'd ended up on the _Enterprise_ with his father, the guilt had come back. _I should have tried harder to reach him_. "I left him too soon."

"Don't start again. You've put yourself through en—" The whine of the transporter cut him off as three bodies materialized in the middle of sickbay. Two conscious ones carrying one unconscious one. As the bodies coalesced, Beverly recognized all three of them. Andrew and Gracie were carrying someone.

It was Jean-Luc.

"I heard you say you were going to kill him, but I didn't think you were serious," Malcolm said.

"Shut up and help me get him onto a bed," Gracie replied.

"That's no way to speak to your superior officer," Mal said, even as he moved forward and helped the other two lift Picard's unconscious body.

"I'll speak to you reasonably when you stop making smart remarks," Gracie said as she stepped back and scanned her father quickly. "He's fine. Just asleep."

"You didn't have to dose him," Andrew said, eyes trained on Gracie across the bed.

"You didn't see him going on up there! He had the admiral by the arms and was shaking him, raving about us having to save humanity, that everyone's life was at stake, we had to find the cause. He wouldn't listen to reason or logic or anything except for himself."

"Did you even bother to try and talk to him?"

"What do you think I did when I went up there?"

"Yell at him about Mom, that's what. He didn't come down here to check on her, so you went up there to throw another guilt trip right into his face, make him feel more pressured and frantic than he already does. I'm sure that helped move things along nicely and he felt completely at ease to discuss things rationally. And I'm positive you brought up the Irumodic and insinuated that he's completely delusional and imagining this entire thing."

As Andrew spoke, Gracie had made her way to his side of the biobed, standing direction in front of him, her furious eyes riveted on his equally furious gray eyes. Both of them seemed to have forgotten that the subject of their argument lay near them. Sickbay had come to a dead halt as the argument between doggedly stubborn and redheaded-tempered brother and sister continued to escalate. To some, it was an old fight, one that had surfaced just after Allie's accident. Andrew sticking up for their father and Gracie for their mother.

But Beverly, on her part, didn't hear them. Almost fourteen years had passed since she'd seen him in person. He'd taken to wearing a beard, not like the beard Will had sported since his _Enterprise_-D days, but one trimmed very short, just beyond the point of being stubble. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what looked so different about him. It wasn't the beard. Something wasn't right. Then she had it.

He looked old.

It seemed unnatural for it to be so, because Jean-Luc Picard should never look as old as he did lying there on the biobed, like a man who had given up years ago and his body kept on going on its own accord, as if someone had neglected to mention to it that the mind had long since given up. "Jean-Luc," she said, her voice so scratchy and low that no one heard her over the volume of her adult children's voices. Her hand reached out and traced the familiar line of his jaw. Then she noticed the shadow that Caleb had spoken to her about. It wasn't Allie, it was Jean-Luc. It would always be. He had just realized it before she had. "Damn you," she said, speaking Jean-Luc. _I still love you_ _and everyone else could see it, even if they didn't know you, or even saw me with you._

"He isn't dead yet," Andrew said.

"It would've been easier if he was." At her son's silence, she looked up at him.

"You don't mean that," he said, his gray eyes gaining the cloud cover of a stormy winter sky.

"Not the way you're thinking." She dropped her hand to Jean-Luc's chest, feeling the soft rise and fall as he breathed. "I could have forgiven him, if he had died. Then he would've had an excuse to give up on everything. It'd be understandable that he had withdrawn, because he would be physically gone. Instead, he left me emotionally, stayed entirely within himself. But physically, he was still actually there. His body was living, taking up space, going through the motions of being a starship captain, of being a husband and father. I couldn't forgive him for that."

"I don't think he forgave himself, either."

They shared an uncomfortable silence, neither of them knowing what to say, and finally, neither of them not saying anything for fear of hurting the other. Dr. Malcolm stepped in after he finished his meeting with Gracie—it had been that meeting that'd halted the argument between the two of them—and told Gracie she wasn't be on duty for at least twenty-four hours, then unceremoniously kicked Beverly and Andrew out of sickbay as well. Unsure of what to do or where to go, they went into default mode and ended up in Ten-Forward. Andrew sat with his back to the bar, his eyes on the stars passing by. Gracie played with the glass that contained her drink, while Beverly studied the both of them.

The doors opened to admit people Beverly also hadn't seen in years. A warm smile lit her face as she stood to greed her old friends. Will and Deanna gave her close hugs, Worf a handshake, Data a nod. For awhile, they all chattered about nothing, merely playing catch up with the endless mundane details of their lives, everyone avoiding the subject that they all needed to address the most. But Jean-Luc aside, watching her son bothered Beverly. Rather, it wasn't the watching that bothered her, but what she learned from watching him.

He hadn't taken his eyes off the stars except for brief glances at whoever was speaking and when he'd stood up to greet everyone when they'd first come in. When she'd spoken to him on Romulus the month before, there hadn't been any stars to distract him. Most of his time was spent floors deep in ruins that didn't allow any of the sky to peek through, night or day. Watching him now, he had that same look about him as he'd had since he was a little boy, even as a grown man. Somehow she'd missed that point where her son had given up his dream, and it'd happened long before his twin died.

"This ship's held up pretty well over the years," Andrew said, turning back towards the group. "It's like stepping back in time, so little has changed here since I first came aboard."

Will gave him one of his trademark broad grins. "They were going to decommission her about five years ago, but one nice thing about being an admiral is getting to choose your own ship."

Andrew returned the smile, but it held none of the brilliance of Will's. Deanna picked up on his preoccupation, then picked up on Beverly's and Gracie's. Not that it was a hard thing to recognize, the tension over Jean-Luc was so palpable between them all that even put Data on edge. "How long is this thing between you and Jean-Luc going to go on?" Troi asked, addressing Beverly.

She shrugged, she'd wondered that herself when it first started, and only within the past few hours had she wondered again. "It's been going on for fifteen years now, and it doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon."

"I think the last thing Allie would have wanted would be for her mother and father to be alienated from one another," Deanna said, her voice serious, tinged with the pain she was feeling from each of them.

Before Beverly could form a reply, Gracie spoke up. "He alienated himself." Anger pushed away the sadness that'd been in her gray eyes before Troi's comment. "I tried speaking with him after it happened, I tried after the funeral, I tried before Mom finally gave up and left him, like he wanted her to do. Deanna, he _wanted_ everyone to leave him alone, and that's what he got. He can stew in it all he wants."

Andrew started to open his mouth but Gracie cut him off before he could jump in. "And don't you say anything. You were there. He couldn't even look at Mom. At anyone. He just stayed in his own little world, content to be on his own."

"Do you really think he was content to be alone? Do you think he's really content right now, or that this is the life he imagined he'd have twenty-five years ago?" Andrew asked, staring his sister down.

"I imagine his future had Allie in it," Gracie said, then she went quiet. They all recognized it, saw that Gracie had gone too far. While she had lost her older sister, Andrew had lost his twin.

At the funeral, Andrew had looked as much in shock and disbelief as he had when they'd first given him the news. At times, he'd been as silent as his father on the matter, but then where Jean-Luc stayed quiet, Andrew had angry outbursts that came and went without warning. His entire life fell apart in the months after Allie died, he quit the project he was on, alienated his mentors, and eventually his fiance had left him, tired of putting up with his moodiness. It took him quite a few years and a lot of help to settle back down. Deanna had played a large part in that, managing to somehow get him to see a colleague of hers that was able to connect with him.

If she hadn't stepped in, Andrew would likely have ended up like his father—completely alone and completely lost. And that's how she knew he'd felt, because he managed to say a few things to her at the funeral, and one of them had been a haunting question. _"If your twin dies, are you still a twin?"_

She never came up with an answer for that. When she'd found out she was having twins, she'd read everything she could get her hands on that explained twins and their relationships. Identical or fraternal, twins were two people who were together since they came into being, so close that while in the womb, they hugged one another. While the scientific part of her knew that it was because that's the only way they could possibly fit, another part of her wondered at the nature of the twin bond. Even after hundreds of years of study, scientists couldn't entirely explain what that extra _something_ was between twins.

And when Allie died, Andrew had lost that part of his life he'd had since he'd existed, and he hadn't known what to do with himself.

"I imagine it did," Andrew whispered, then stood and started for the door. Beverly put a hand on his wrist. She wouldn't let him go. He was too much like his father, and while Jean-Luc was too far gone, she could at least keep her son from getting away.

"Oh my god," Gracie said.

The group looked at the young doctor as she jumped to her feet, then followed her gaze to the doors of Ten Forward. Jean-Luc Picard had stumbled in, wearing a robe over his Sickbay-issue pajamas, and nothing on his feet. "Will!" he said. "I know what's happening. I know what causes the anomaly. We have to go back!"

By that time, they'd all gotten to their feet. "The only place you're going is back to bed," Riker said, moving towards Picard.

Picard scowled. "Dammit! Will, I know what's happening. We're causing the anomaly..." His confidence went away and the words began to stumble as much as his feet. "With a...with the tachyon pulse...it happened in all three time periods. We do it in all three time periods!"

Gracie had reached him and taken him by the arm. "Dad, you'd better come with me."

The captain jerked his arm out of his daughter's hands. "Leave me alone! I'm not crazy." Gracie was so taken aback that she said nothing as Picard continued his attempt at explanation to Will. "The tachyon pulses, they, they were used in the same spot, in all three time periods. Don't you see? When the tachyon pulse used the...I mean, when the _Enterprise_ used the tachyon pulse, we set the...you know...we...started everything...we set it in motion." The words still wouldn't come out easily, it was obvious how clouded his thinking had become. Beverly saw a sad shadow of what he'd once been. "It's like... the chicken and the egg! You think it started back then, but it didn't, it started here in the future. That's why it gets larger in the past."

Data was able to make sense of the conglomeration of sentences first. "I think I understand what the captain is saying. If I'm not mistaken, he is describing a paradox."

"Yes! Yes, exactly." Relief flooded through Picard's voice.

"Intriguing. It is possible we could have created the very anomaly we have been looking for. And because anti-time operates in the opposite way normal time does, the effects would run backwards through the space-time continuum."

"Yes! That's why the anomaly was larger in the past. It was growing as it travelled backward through time."

With Jean-Luc's last sentence, coupled with Data's supposition, Beverly realized Jean-Luc might not be as far gone as they had all thought. Yet like it had been years ago, he wasn't making eye contact with her.

Will let out a big sigh. "All right. Let's say for the moment, you're right. What do we do about it?"

Picard looked at Will as if the answer were completely obvious and he obviously wasn't the one with dementia if Will couldn't see it for himself. "We go back. We go back to the Devron system."

"He may be right," Data said, addressing Riker's doubtful expression. "If we return to the Devron System now, we might see the initial formation of the anomaly."

All eyes went from being trained on Jean-Luc to being trained on Will. Beverly felt it, how they were all on edge, still holding out for that possibility that Picard wasn't as much a shadow as he must be. A hand lay on her shoulder, offering support. She didn't need to turn around to know it was her son's. He was the one who was hurting more, but there he was, helping her.

"Riker to Bridge. Set course for the Devron System. Maximum warp," he said, then started for the door. Gracie took her father's arm again and this time, he didn't shake her off. As they went through the door together, Jean-Luc turned briefly, and looked at Beverly.

And she looked back.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Looking Beverly in the eye for the first time since their last—and final—separation made Jean-Luc Picard realized two things._ I made the mistake of my life, and yet, she still loves me, even now._ He wanted to fall back behind the crowd, walk beside her, tell her everything he'd finally come to realize. But he didn't have time for that, as time continued to destroy itself in the system they were warping towards. Time had run in on itself, and in doing so, entirely away from them. Seeing their son walking beside her brought him some comfort, that Beverly at least had some of the loving support she needed, in spite of any protests she might have launched. They had all made a mess of things, all of them together, hiding their most profound thoughts and feelings as effectively as hiding their bodies within lone bunkers. Gracie dedicated entirely to her career, Andrew throwing away the life he could have lead, having a wife and family, and instead choosing to mimic his sister in putting all his energy into his own career.

They were good at what they did, both of them, each excelling in their fields, respected by many. Their work would live on long after they died. But other than that, they would leave nothing. Picard's time as Kamin had taught him a valuable lesson that he still struggled with: you live through the memories of others, through their love and fondness, your impact on the course of their lives. Your loved ones would carry you forever. In becoming Kamin, Picard took the memories with him afterward. Kamin, through him, and through all those who again heard the story of the man, his family, his village, and his world. And when Beverly had broken down and told him about Andrew, Allie, Gracie, that opportunity to live on like that had been presented to him, not as Kamin, but as Jean-Luc Picard. As his daughter escorted him down the corridor, his son walking beside his mother—now Picard's ex-wife—behind them, Jean-Luc knew he had failed. Wesley had gone off on his own a long time ago, joining back up with the Traveler, leaving them all behind for other, more fulfilling, planes of existence. Allie had left unwillingly, taken from them. And one other.

He had to ask. The others took the first 'lift to the bridge while Picard purposely refused, wanting to speak with his daughter alone. He did meet Beverly's gaze as she walked by, her eyes telling him that they had so much to talk about, now that he had become aware of exactly what he'd done. But now they hadn't time for that, they'd wasted what time they had.

The doors closed and Gracie turned to him. "What is it?"

"I have to ask this question and it's going to sound as insane as everything else I've said lately, except this question might lead you to think that maybe my mind is more dodgy than any of us thought."

Her hand hadn't left his arm. "Go ahead," she said, looking at him, her gray eyes having lost the steel of before, now soft and concerned, those feelings reflected in her voice.

"Did you ever have a younger brother?"

Her hand fell away from his arm as her gaze did the same from his eyes. She bit her lip, looking around everywhere except directly at him.

He reached out, held her by her shoulders. "Grace."

"He died," she said, eyes on the floor. "He died before he even got to be born. I was still a little girl." Then she brought herself to look at him. "What makes you ask?"

"I thought he was alive. I thought he was alive and living far away from us all, ignoring us because we ignored everything we felt about the others."

"Shit." Her voice came out more soft than a whisper yet scratched with the rough end of being in denial. Even though she'd read reports from scans, she'd held onto some slight chance that nothing was really going to happen to him. And with her father's words, her illusion of hope cracked into hundreds of pieces of nothing. "I didn't want to be right."

"I'm sorry." When she didn't say anything, just stood there instead, he started filling the silence with the words he had going through his mind. "There's a lot of things I need to apologize for, to you, to Andrew, to your mother. I wasted so much time."

"It's too late," Gracie said. "You'll be gone within a few months, if that. Don't you realize? I can't get used to you being here again just to have you finish losing your mind and then die, leaving us again. You shouldn't have apologized at all. It would've been easier that way."

Silence came between them again and this time, Picard didn't try and fill it up with words. He studied his daughter as she studied him, seeing the hopelessness he felt mirrored in her eyes. As he looked, he saw her struggling to keep her emotions in check, clenching and unclenching her jaw. So he did what felt natural, pulled her closer to him, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close. "I'm sorry," he said.

At first, she went rigid and he couldn't remember the last time he'd hugged his daughter, it had been that long. Then she brought her arms and linked them behind his back, returning the hug. "It's too late, Papa," she said into his shoulder. "And you've got humanity to save."

He pulled away. "So _now_ you believe me?"

She sighed and moved into the turbolift. "I'd rather that than the alternative."

He smiled, tight, grim. "Rather laugh than cry?"

"That too."

The rest of the trip in the 'lift was in silence, except it wasn't what had gone on between them before, during those fifteen years. Things were still there, in the way, the giant elephant lumbering around, but now they acknowledged his presence. It's all they could do, they didn't have time to chase him off. They were stubborn animals, elephants. Nearly as stubborn as humans.

The 'lift doors opened and deposited them on the bridge. Andrew and Beverly both stood near the doors, hands on the railing that surrounded the main bridge area. Nothing had changed on the viewscreen, not yet. Andrew turned at the sound of the doors opening. "Took your sweet time, didn't you," he said.

"Entering the Devron system, sir," the ensign at the helm called out.

"All stop," said Riker, standing up from the command chair.

"Sensors are picking up a small temporal anomaly off the port bow," Data said, reading from the console in front of him. "It's an anti-time eruption. It seems to have formed within the last six hours."

"On screen."

"I was right," Picard said, keeping his voice quiet. He'd said enough already. But he was the one traveling through all three time periods. If they stopped it now, it wouldn't go back, Gabriel wouldn't die before he was born, Allie wouldn't get in that accident, he and Beverly wouldn't be divorced from one another. And then, humanity would be saved as well, and it would be a humanity he'd be content to live in, unlike this current one. "We've got to stop it here," he said, addressing Riker, raising his voice enough to be heard. "So it won't be able to travel back in time."

"The anomaly is being sustained by the continuing tachyon pulses from the other two time periods. I suggest they be shut down," said Data.

"The next time I'm there, that's the first thing I'll do." Picard heard a slight snort from behind him and took a second to glare at his daughter.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, unable to hide her laughter. "I know I believe you and that it's happening, but it still sounds absolutely ridiculous."

Andrew elbowed her in the ribs and she gave him an elbow back. Picard shook his head slightly and turned around to the others and the more pressing matter presented on the viewscreen. "Isn't there more we can do from here?" Picard asked. "Seal the rupture somehow?"

"I'm still investigating the options." Data's fingers were a blur on the console.

The captain took a step towards the android and found himself once again in uniform, but not the exhaustingly skin-tight uniform of the far past. "Data, disengage the tachyon pulse."

Without question, the present-Data did as ordered. Picard turned around to explain the order to his crew and found himself looking at the quizzical eyes of his past crew. He'd switched again. And barely had he given the order, when he found himself in the future, standing next to Data. "I've shut off the tachyon pulses in the other time periods, but the anomaly didn't change."

With his pronouncement, time seemed to fall into a vortex that none of them could escape from, so they could only go along with each event as it leapt forward.

"The only way to stop this thing is to repair the rupture at the focal point where time and anti-time are converging," Data said.

"How do we do that?" Will Riker asked from his seat in the command chair.

"It would require taking the ship into the anomaly itself." Data paused as the others reacted to his statement with incredulous looks. "Once inside, we may be able to use our engines to create a static warp shell. It would act as an artificial subspace barrier, separating time and anti-time, collapsing the anomaly and restoring the flow of time. But for it to work, it must be done in the other two time periods as well." Data finished by looking at his former captain.

_Restoring the normal flow of time_. It's all he wanted to do, slip back into the stream of time that he'd become so content to exist in. _I want my real life back._ But was what he left behind in the present, Beverly sedated on a biobed, their son dead in the morgue, was that his real life now? If he could restore the flow of time, he would find out, and he hoped that it wouldn't be. Aloud, he said, "There could be a problem. The anomaly's so much larger in the other time periods that it would be dangerous to take the ship in."

"Into where, sir?" O'Brien asked from the helm.

He'd shifted again, he hadn't even noticed until the question came from a person in his past. And now he had to convince a crew that had known him for only a scant few days to risk their lives for a mission with a purpose that they couldn't decipher. A mission for a captain disobeying Starfleet orders and seemingly off his rocker. So he did what he'd done all his life, he did what came to him as a starship captain.

He lead.

He told them their merits as a crew, acknowledged their doubts about him and themselves, and told them he would trust them with his life. And he did. "I'm asking you to make a leap of faith," he finished. "And trust me."

Their was a pause that crept across the bridge, a moment of contemplative silence that occurred in life during those precipitous instances, with the silence becoming longer in each circumstance. Then the silence was drowned away by the bustle of crewmen putting themselves to work.

They trusted him. And more importantly, they now trusted themselves.

"Shields up, maximum strength." Tasha.

"Boosting the integrity field to the warp nacelles. We may encounter shearing forces once we enter the anomaly." Worf.

"I am preparing to initiate a static warp shell." Data.

"Course laid in, sir." O'Brien.

"All decks report ready, Captain." Troi.

The captain took a quick second to look around at them all, young, eager, ready to face what could be the last moment of their lives. To face what could be Picard's last memory of them all. "Chief, take us in," Picard said. He blinked and when he opened his eyes, he was facing an anomaly on the viewscreen slightly smaller than the one in the furthest past.

"Captain," said Data. "I have an idea. If we take the ship into the center of the anomaly and create—"

"A static warp shell, it could repair the barrier and collapse the anomaly," the captain finished for his second officer.

The android blink, obviously surprised at his captain's knowledge of frontier warp theoretics. "Yes, sir."

Picard gave him a small grin. "Mr. Data, you're a clever man in any time period." He stood from the command chair and took steps towards the helm. "Lay in a course for the center of the anomaly. Prepare to initiate a static warp shell."

Another blink, another time period, and he found himself on the future's bridge, the crew there looking at him as the crew of the past had, wondering about themselves and this mission they couldn't quite decide if it was really existing, or it they had all fallen into the delusion of a very sick old man. He could feel their eyes on them, but here he had his past to fall back on, once, they had all trusted him with their safety, their well-being, and ultimately, their lives. Each of them he had failed in some way, especially those who stood at the bank of consoles aft of the command chairs, especially the woman standing next to his son and daughter. The captain lifted his eyes and looked at each of them, roving from one side of the bridge to the other, making eye contact with each person, holding them for a instant. If he died, if they all died, wherever he might end up in eternity, he wanted to remember them as they were.

Finally, he came to Will. "The other two ships are on their way."

Riker nodded. "Very well." He turned to the officer at the helm. "Ensign..." then he stopped and looked over at his former captain. "This is your mission, Jean-Luc," he said, pitched quietly so that the others could choose to hear, or if Picard backed away, they could pretend the comment had never been made.

Picard understood. Riker was handing him the command, allowing him to see this one through, as it well could be their last. He nodded at Will, then turned to the helm. "Ensign, take us in."

As the anomaly grew as they got closer, the gaping maw of the annihilation of time rushing towards them, the embodiment of the rush of life passing by, the emotional ties that held them all together, in each time period, tensed up, strained in the faith given to each person. The captain shifted time periods so quickly that he barely noticed, intent on the anomaly and restoring time. Saving humanity.

"We're entering the anomaly, sir," said O'Brien. With that cue, the ship rocked about, the ravages of time sending the inertial dampeners into overdrive.

"All hands brace for impact!" said Picard.

"The temporal energy's interfering with the main power," Tasha said as she hurriedly tapped the controls in front of her. "Switching to—"

Another jolt sent them searching for something to hang onto.

"Auxiliary power," said Geordi from one of the terminals in the back. "I'm having trouble keeping the impulse engines online. I've got power fluctuations across the board!" his tone grew more frantic as his fingers flew across the panel, trying to keep things aboard his ship working.

"Maintain course and speed," said the captain. "Data, how long until we reach the center?" _And how long will it seem to all of us?_

"Another thirty seconds at least, Captain," replied Data.

The ship continued to shake its protest. Picard reached for a console to keep himself upright. He found himself gripping a console he hadn't been standing next to, at least in the present. In the future, he'd been right next to it.

"We've entered the anomaly," Data said. Another pause and he said, "We've reached the center, sir."

"Initiate warp shell!" The rattle of the buffeting the hull was taking required voices to be raised, not in panic, but in the assured tones of command.

"Initiating static warp shell now." Data tapped the panel with a sense of finality.

Silence dropped over them all, managing to squelch the rumbling around them for a brief instant as their senses sought out some sensation of that fix they were trying to create.

Riker broke it, asking the question on each of their minds. "Is it having any effect?"

Data answered the question, but in the past. "Something is happening," he said, reading off the Ops panel while gripping the console to keep himself in his chair. "A new subspace barrier appears to be forming."

"Captain!" Tasha said. "Sensors are picking up..." she stumbled briefly over the words, not believing what she read, but reading it aloud regardless. "Two other ships."

_Of course they do_, Picard thought. He turned to face the viewscreen and was rooted to his spot through a shift into each time period, and in every one, they all stood, unable to tear their eyes away from the view of two other ships, each an _Enterprise_, each nearly identical to their own. The other ships were pale ghosts flicking across the screen, merging over one, then drawing away, then merging again. For yet another instant in his life, Jean-Luc Picard was speechless at the powers of the universe.

"Captain, it appears to be working." Data, however, was unaffected and remained focused on his task. "The anomaly is beginning to collapse, I think that—"

"Sir, the temporal energy is rupturing our warp containment system!" Tasha shouted.

"We must eject the core!" Worf said from his position. The knock the ship took emphasized the Klingon's point.

"No, we must maintain the static warp shell for as long as possible," said Picard. To argue with him, the ship shuddered at the beating it was taking. But not a single one of them questioned his orders or questioned themselves or questioned the mission. They remained steadfast at their posts.

Then Tasha looked up, eyes wide in shock. The moment had come, the one they'd all been waiting for, the one they knew would occur from the moment they crept into the lair of the beast. "We're losing containment! I can't stop it, it's going to—"

From his vantage point on the bridge of the present _Enterprise_, Picard witnessed the ship of his past explode as its warp core breached. _Tasha. Worf. Data. O'Brien. Troi. I will remember you_.

Then the captain turned aft, relaying orders to keep this ship intact for as long as possible. He understood. It would happen here as well. "Transfer emergency power to the antimatter containment system!"

But the shaking told them their efforts would be in vain. The deck lurched and shuddered as they carried out their duties. "I'm trying, sir," said Geordi. "But there's a lot of interference."

"The warp shell is definitely having an effect, sir," said Data. "The anomaly is collapsing—"

As before, this pronouncement was interrupted by another. "The containment system's going! I can't hold it!"

"Maintain position, Mr. La Forge—"

And then he was standing on the bridge of the future's ship as they all witnessed the destruction of the second _Enterprise_. They had all maintained position until the very end, an end that would be happening on this ship as well. Around him, eyes were open, taking everything in, even though comprehension was beyond any of them.

"Both of the other ships have been destroyed," said Data.

Everyone heard the _sotto voce_ comment from the bank of control panels. "You're shitting me."

Inside, Picard felt himself smile. In any situation, in any time period, he could count on some kind of consistency. _That's my girl_, he thought, looking over at his daughter and giving her a wink. Beverly noticed the exchange and took the chance to catch his eye, holding him to looking at her. Then she smiled, and for the first time in fifteen years, they were connected again, even though they were near the end.

Beside him, Q appeared, fatalistically draped in a grim reaper's robe, fingers grasping a remarkably sharp-looking scythe. "Two down, one to go," he whispered almost seductively into Picard's ear.

"Data, report!" said Picard, ignoring Q.

"The anomaly is almost collapsed," he said.

The announcement came again from Geordi. "We're losing containment!"

The ship shuddered in agreement.

"Good bye, Jean-Luc," said Q. "I'll miss you. You did have so much potential. But I guess, all good things must come to an end."

"Containment field at critical! I'm losing it—"

The captain paid no attention to Q, instead turning back to see Beverly one more time, to see his children one last time. "I love you," he told them, but had no idea if they heard him, and then it all didn't matter. All he saw was white and he felt nothing. No pain, no torment, not even a disorientation of leaving whatever existence he'd once known. He slowly opened his eyes—he wasn't aware that he'd even closed them—and found himself, once again, in that damned courtroom, with that damned omnipotent being studying him from that damned judge's chair and wearing those damned judge's robes. Like he had before, when he thought he'd died and found himself alone in eternity with Q, he thought, _I'm damned_.

Q spoke. "The Continuum didn't think you had it in you, Jean-Luc. But I knew you could."

The captain looked at him. "Are you saying it worked? We collapsed the anomaly?"

"Is that all this meant to you? Just another spatial anomaly? Just another day at the office?"

"Is that all it means to you?" Picard shot back. "Just another day playing games with mortals? Just another moment of entertainment in your infinite existence as you dabble in the lives of other beings? As you destroy them, bit by bit, in order to fulfill your own needs of grandeur?" When Q said nothing, Picard continued. "Q, did it _work_?"

Q rolled his eyes. "You're here, aren't you? You're talking to me, aren't you?"

Still not a good enough answer. "What about my crew?" he asked. "What about my family?"

Q heaved a martyr's sigh. "The anomaly. My crew. My ship. My family. I suppose you're worried about your unborn son, too." He paused, seeking Picard's reaction. He wasn't given one. "Well, if it puts your mind at ease, you've saved humanity once again."

_They were all alive_. Relief flowed through him, filling him with a content warmth, even projected out towards the omnipotent being sitting in front of him. And as Gracie had done to him in the twisted future of Q's creation, he capitulated. "Thank you," he said, and was surprised to find that he _was_ truly grateful, that his thanks was sincere.

Though he claimed to be above such things like human emotions, Q certainly looked the part of surprised at Picard's words. "For what?" he asked.

The captain did his best to keep the smile off his face. "You had a hand in helping me get out of this."

"I was the one who got you into it, Jean-Luc. That was the directive from the Continuum. The part about the helping hand..." he paused, the expression in his eyes telling Picard that he'd realized the mortal was entirely correct. "...was my idea." He'd admitted his role, what he'd done from start to finish. If he had had such things as emotions, he would feel justified, because this Jean-Luc Picard did have such potential. And yet again, had he such things as human emotions, he would be fond of this Picard fellow. It would've been a shame to see him wiped off the planes of existence. Then Q would have to go find another mortal to watch and poke and see develop, and it was such _work_ to find mortals with that sort of existential potential. His actions in helping were completely justified...if he were capable of feeling in such a way.

"I sincerely hope this is the last time I find myself here," said Picard.

Q slowly shook his head. So much to learn, this puny human. "You just don't get it, do you? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did."

"When I realized the paradox."

"Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you'd never considered. That's the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence."

Picard frowned. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Q smiled, glee filling his eyes so that the human would understand, of course, he didn't actually feel those emotions. Certainly not. "You'll find out," he said. "In any case, I'll be watching. And if you're lucky, I'll drop by to say hello from time to time." He tossed his hand and the chair retreated from view. Just before he was completely out of Picard's sight, he said, "See you out there."

Then he was gone.

Jean-Luc Picard blinked and found himself stepping through a set of opening turbolift doors. The urgency coursed through him again, propelling him forward, toward whomever would be standing in the corridor. He'd done this before, when memories of skipping from time period to time period haunted him, confused him. But this time, he'd gone through that entire experience, this time, it was all in his past, even if no one else knew of it, aside from Q.

His bare feet brought him to a halt as he spied Will Riker and Deanna Troi outside her door. "Counselor!" he nearly shouted in his urgency. "What's today's date? The date?"

Will answered. "Four seven nine eight eight."

Deanna studied him with her inky Betazoid eyes, her concern obvious. "Captain, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing, actually. In fact, I think I'll go back to bed. I could use some sleep." He smiled at them, made a note to himself to tell Beverly about this new development, and headed back to his quarters, leaving a confused first officer and ship's counselor in his wake.

The doors to his quarters opened with a soft hiss and allowed him inside. Conal rose onto his large paws and padded over to greet him, then went and settled back into his staked out spot in Andrew's room. The captain stopped to peer into Gracie's room, then found himself drawn to walk over, to touch her assure himself that she was there, still his little girl, and not that fully grown beautiful woman she would become, one who's temper had flared and was directed squarely at him. She made no sounds in her sleep. With a kiss to her forehead, he left her room, then went to Allie's.

She was there too, arms and legs flung everywhere, the comforter somehow tossed from the bed to the floor. He went in and picked it up, then draped it over her, hoping it would stay on longer than it had before. The captain reached out and smoothed her hair, then kissed her forehead as he had his younger daughter's. She didn't wake up, she slept as soundly as her mother. He kept his hand on her hair, resting it on her head, the panic draining away as he assured himself that she was alive and well. She wouldn't be dying anytime soon, she would continue to be alive and well and die a happy old woman, he hoped with a family of her own, and a life she'd be content with when she finally called it quits in this life. With a last long look, he left her room before she woke up and unleashed her temper on him for waking her up.

In his bedroom, he found his wife as asleep as their daughters, her hand out and resting on his empty side of the bed. He doffed his robe and crept in beside her, his hand sliding down to her swollen abdomen, his fingers splayed out, seeking out reassurance that their unborn son was also as alive as their daughters. He couldn't help the grin that broke out on his face when he felt the first kick, then another, turning into a flurry of kicks he could feel through his fingers. The covers rustled as Beverly woke up from the baby's activity. "I hope you don't wake him up like that once he's born," she whispered. "And now I won't be able to fall asleep until he quiets down."

Reflexively, he started to apologize and then stopped. In that moment, he wasn't sorry at all, because they were all alive, each of them. He felt his eyes shut. _I didn't fail. _After softly kissing her belly, he moved up to look at her, the light from the stars outside illuminating her blue eyes, showing him so many different emotions than what he'd last seen from her, in Q's awful present and Q's even more awful future. No resentment or bitterness, no measures of insurmountable pain that he'd caused, it was just her. She reached out and stroked his cheek, her fingers tracing downward along his jaw, then her thumb brushing something away. "Jean-Luc, what's happened?" she asked. When he didn't answer, instead only continuing to study her, she moved forward and kissed first one cheek, then the other.

He realized what she'd brushed away, that somehow, he'd allowed some of the tears to fall, and here she was, kissing them away. Picard reached up and took her hands in his, meeting her gaze. "Beverly, there's something I need to tell you," he began.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Dr. Beverly Picard listened closely as her husband's story fell away from his lips and into her ears. "It's as if I've been given a second chance," he said, then went and explained how before, he'd been traveling back and forth through time, from a changed past to a future he could never have imagined, nor, from what it seemed, did he want to. But somehow, it had been fixed by collapsing that anomaly, and he was back at the beginning of that time shifting, this time, now without the shifting. His eyes came back from that faraway gaze and focused on her. "It was Q's doing," he said.

She crossed her arms, irritation with the omnipotent being already beginning to flare. "He created that anomaly just for you to solve?"

He shook his head. "No, not exactly. The Continuum ordered him to create it, but the time shifting help was of his own volition."

Beverly couldn't help herself, she smiled at the attachment Q seemed to have for the captain.

Picard noticed and raised an eyebrow at her. "What?" Immediately on the defensive.

"I think he likes you, Jean-Luc," she said, unable to keep the amusement from her voice. "He'd be heartbroken if he didn't have you to..." she trailed off a bit as his brow crinkled, but kept speaking anyway. "...play with," she finished.

To her surprise, he cracked a smile. "Data said much the same thing in one of the time periods."

"Did he?"

"He said that Q's interest in me is somewhat like that of a master and a beloved pet."

The doctor snorted. "And how did you react?"

"Not terribly well." They shared the smile for a moment, then his faded, and she realized it was clouded by the memories of what he'd seen in their future. She waited, tamping down her impulse to question him, knowing that if he was already allowing his emotions to show plainly on the surface, he was about to talk about them anyway. He didn't disappoint, reaching out to take her arms and uncross them from her chest so he could hold her hands. "Tomorrow, you should probably do a level four neurographic scan on me."

A slight tremor raced into her hands. "I didn't even know you knew a level four neurographic scan existed. So why, all of the sudden, do you want one performed on you?"

With his thumbs, he rubbed the palms of her hands. "In the future, I had Irumodic Syndrome."

Her breath caught itself in a web of disbelief. Her hands went cold. "And in the present that you experienced, I scanned you?"

"Yes." He didn't break eye contact.

"And I found something."

"Yes." He answered her statement as if it were a question, though they both knew there wasn't any question about it. He wouldn't have brought it up if something hadn't been found.

She dropped his hands from hers and got out of the bed, already searching for the nearest clean uniform. It didn't make sense to wait until morning, she could scan him right now and put the entire notion of the possibility of Irumodic Syndrome to rest. That way, _she_ could actually rest, because until she had a solid answer, worry was going to keep her awake. The covers rustled behind her, then hands gently held her shoulders. "It can wait," Picard whispered into her ear. "Things have already taken a different course, the future that Q showed me...I'm certain it won't happen."

Beverly removed his hands from her shoulders and turned to face him. He'd scared her with this story of his, and now he was trying to protect her from whatever he thought she needed protection from by attempting to steer her away from her task. Jean-Luc had always had this way about him. She knew it wasn't out of pity or seeing her as a fragile being, nor even that ancient parity between men and women. It was Jean-Luc Picard, trying to protect those whom he felt needed and deserved protection. Even before she'd married him, before he'd witnessed her carrying their child, he'd protected her. Like when he left that night, it was his way of taking on all the guilt, protecting her by not allowing her to share the burden. As of late, the phenomenon had only gotten worse, and had really begun to get under her skin. "How can you tell me what happened in the future and then ask me to forget about it?" Her arms had somehow crossed themselves again.

The captain took a mental step back as he watched the anger fill his wife's blue eyes. "That isn't what I said. You may have heard that, but it wasn't what I said."

Now he was turning into the diplomat on her, serving to intensify her irritation. "You've been to the future. How can you tell me all this when my knowledge of what happened will contaminate the timeline? Isn't that a violation of the Prime Directive?"

His tone stayed level and gentle. "Since the anomaly didn't occur, the future isn't written in stone." He paused, eyes glancing towards the stars outside the window, then back to her. "That knowing what the future could bring, it gives us the chance to change things now. So that some things never happen."

She heard the real meaning behind his words and it softened the hard edge she'd taken with him. Putting the knowledge of his Irumodic Syndrome aside, she thought about his other bit of information, about their divorce. As irritated as she was with him right at that moment, she couldn't imagine leaving him, nor could she fathom him leaving her. "What drove us to that?" she asked.

He blinked. He hadn't expected her question. "We just sort of drifted apart."

Beverly knew bullshit when she heard it, she had enough experience with it as a mother, a doctor, and a Starfleet officer. "There has to be something that causes it, I really don't think we would just drift apart."

The captain's gray eyes trained back on the space outside. "Well, that's how it happened."

She also knew a lie when she heard it. "Jean-Luc."

"We drifted apart." He still wouldn't look at her.

The more he avoided giving a truthful answer, the more she was certain his answer would hurt them both. But she didn't want him taking on that whole pain onto himself, not when it involved the two of them. Knowing how he worked, she decided to take another angle, because continuing to confront him head-on would be useless. This time, it was she who placed a hand on his shoulder. "When you came to bed, what made you wake up our son?"

Her words made him move away from her and stand in front of the window, entirely abandoning the bed and placing it in between them by his movement. In the starlight, she saw his jaw working, saw his eyes tighten at the corners, and she wanted to scream at him. To shout, to cajole, do something to make him tell her what he knew. But she couldn't, the girls were asleep in their rooms, so she would have to keep her quiet. She said nothing, instead glaring at him from her position next to the closet, trying to figure out what she could say that wouldn't come out as a shout. Nothing came to mind, over and over again. The awful need to escape skittered across her skin, to get herself away from him and his self righteous over protectiveness. She stopped fighting it. Leaving the captain to brood, she stalked out of their bedroom and into the living area, then vaguely in the direction of the replicator.

She was standing there, pondering what to order, if she should even order anything, when she heard him behind her.

"You're upset with me."

Her decision to remain quiet forgotten, she turned on him. "You're damn right I am!"

Instead of shouting back in his own anger, or further taking the role of the fine diplomat that he was, he just stood there, his face having gone pale. Everything around them fell silent, as if a ghost had just passed through the room, whispering between them, and leaving a quaking Jean-Luc Picard behind.

The times when Picard was vulnerable were few and very far between, and Beverly recognized it. If she wanted answers, she'd have to hit him while he was unprotected by the emotional walls he constantly threw up around himself, get to him while he wasn't keeping himself from view. On another level, she realized that his reaction was way out of proportion to her statement, but she didn't have time to dwell on it, not while the opportunity to open him up was before her. "Stop hiding from me," she said, her tone dropping to a tiny fraction of what it had been in her previous reply.

Slowly, his brain registered her words and came out of the fright he'd gotten. "Beverly, I'm not hiding it _from_ you, I'm hiding it _for_ you." His tone matched hers while his eyes lost the fear and grew somber.

Something in the back of her mind mentioned that she should just drop the subject, that the reason for her husband's protectiveness was, for once, probably valid. Her own protective subconscious started working on her, trying to head her off the confrontation, to keep her from prying the information from him. But she couldn't stop, because now, it would feel worse not to know. "What is _it_?"

When he just continued to look at her, the pain prickling at the edges of his eyes, her anger overran any self-protecting motions her subconscious tried to make. "I'm a mother," she said. "I'm a grown woman, I'm a doctor, I'm a Starfleet officer. Do _not_ hide things from me."

Still, he stood there.

And she stood there.

Holding their ground.

Softly, the captain said, "Beverly..." It was a plea for her to—just this once—let it go.

"Stop trying to protect me." And her answer was no plea. It was certain. She wasn't going to let it go, not even this once.

This time, the story that tumbled from his lips was rough, coarse, and tore at their most fragile emotions on its way into her memory, as it must have into his. Yet the words are spoken so quietly that she strained to hear, even as hearing it made her want to cover her ears in disbelief. "The anomaly," he said. "It caused DNA to regress towards its most basic form, eventually making it lose cohesion. It hit the youngest of us first, and the hardest." His breath caught, the same has hers had, that sense of _this-can't-be-happening_ grabbing onto life functions and dragging them to a halt.

She saw it then, he'd switched from being protective to attempting to be the old ideal of a strong male. One that didn't show emotion, didn't cry. The stranger. "It...it made...he lost cohesion. One moment was there, and then we blinked, and then he wasn't. He was gone and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It all happened in an instant." He paused again, holding his gaze to hers. "Who would have thought an instant could last for that long?"

At first, Beverly didn't follow what Jean-Luc was explaining in halting clinical terms. She understood that anti-time would certainly begin to regress DNA, it made sense on a scientific level. Old scars would disappear, wrinkles would melt away as skin became younger and younger, regaining that pliant softness of childhood. _Childhood_. He was telling her what had happened, why he'd been so insistent on checking on their son as she slept. Her hands immediately dropped to her abdomen, searching for signs of movement to reassure her that their son was still alive within her. Even though she knew only minutes before the baby had been highly active, she needed to feel his kicks and punches _now_. Ever uncooperative, she felt no movement beneath her fingers. In spite of knowing intellectually that everything was fine, there was no reason to panic, after all there wasn't an anomaly to reverse time, panic still held her within its cold embrace.

Her eyes searched frantically around the living area, searching for something that would tell her that everything would be fine, her anger long forgotten. Something cold and metallic was placed in her hand. She blinked, trying to regain some element of calm and found herself looking straight into Jean-Luc's eyes. Her fingers closed around the object, now warm and familiar. _My tricorder._ While she had gone into her maternal panic, her husband had remembered her other role, the one of a physician. As she flipped open the scanner, she didn't notice Picard walk away, heading towards the large windows on the other side of the room. Instead, she focused entirely on the readouts that began to display on her instrument. Every fetal body function was well within healthy parameters, fetal movement was at a normal level, and the rendered image of the baby looked absolutely fine. Even still, she wished that somehow she had to ability to reach him, to protect him from any harm that would befall him so that he would live long enough to be born, and then live a long life after that.

The doctor was recording and entering the data when Jean-Luc spoke from his place in front of the window. "I'm sorry."

The tricorder found its way to the tabletop as she remembered her anger.

"I just didn't want you to...I just didn't want..." he trailed off again, unable to find the right things to say because he couldn't even decide on the right thing to feel. When she saw his eyes this time, when she really looked into them, she saw everything that he couldn't bring himself to explain. When he said, "I'm sorry," again, she heard it for the first time since they had started speaking that night. He'd said the words already, but before, she didn't believe what lay behind them. Now she did.

Beverly went to him, biting her lip in a futile attempt to keep in full control of the mixed emotions she had spinning around inside her head. "What you just did," she said as she drew closer to him, "Was exactly what you said we needed to avoid for this future that you saw _not _to happen. This thing you do, where you close up all the doors and windows and shutter yourself from everyone around you so you can maintain that captainly control of yours, it hurts us all. And then when you add in that instinct you have to protect others for their own good, it only makes things more complicated, frustrating, and in the end, more painful. These ways you have about you, even though you're trying to spare others from pain, in the end, it only causes more pain." She gave him a small, self-deprecating smile. "I know all about it, Jean-Luc, because I did the same thing for seventeen years."

"I know," he said. "And again I'm—"

"Sorry," she finished for him. "But being sorry isn't going to help us, any of us being sorry for what we've done won't stop that future from happening. We're going to have to change, actually share our burdens with each other instead of trying to hold them all in. We _cannot_ afford to be cold with one another."

He looked up. "I wasn't being cold."

She moved even closer, placing her hands on his cheeks so she could keep him looking her in the eye. "There are few things colder than you lying to me. When you insisted that we just 'drifted apart' I would have sooner believed you if you'd told me that you spent your childhood as Puck and rode a unicorn to school. Both of us know what lying to the other does, even when you're trying to protect someone. It ends up being the protection is worse than the truth." She leaned forward and kissed him softly. "Don't hide from me anymore. Please?"

He nodded his answer, kissed her in return. "Let me take you back to bed," he whispered.

It was an argument she could never refuse. And this time, she needed that connection with him, needed to know they were in it all together. So she followed him and let him show her just that.

* * *

When Beverly awoke the next morning, it was from hearing a little voice from a little girl talking to her father. "Papa, I think you need to wake her up."

"You know as well as I do that waking up your mother before she's ready could very well mean your arm would be bitten off." Jean-Luc's voice was scratchy from sleep, but no amount of scratchiness could hide the teasing edge to it. The bed shook a bit as he shifted his weight to sit up.

"Andrew's coming home today. Don't you think she'd be more mad if she missed it?"

"We aren't picking up your brother until this afternoon. And I believe you knew that already." There was a slight pause, and Beverly knew he was looking over at the chronometer.

Gracie did this at least once a week, tried to wake them up, then ended up sleeping with them for the last hour before they had to get up and face the day. They'd spoken with Deanna about it, and Troi had explained that Gracie was most likely making the most of her time with her parents before the baby came, when they would have less time for her because of the demands of an infant. The little girl was also fascinated with the entire pregnancy, so her visits served more than one purpose.

"We don't have to get up for another two hours," Picard said.

Beverly had a hard time silencing the laughter when she pictured the image of her daughter staring at her father with her gray eyes all wide open and innocent of any wrongdoing. She'd witnessed it enough times, Gracie giving her father that look, then Jean-Luc's eyebrows crawling towards the crown of his head as he matched her look in reply. Then she heard him grunt and the bed shifted again as he lifted Gracie from her feet and brought her into the bed with them. "Don't, under any circumstances, wake up your mother," he whispered.

"I won't," Gracie whispered back. Already, the doctor could feel the soft blanket of sleep pulling itself over her mind. She settled back into her pillow as she brought the covers closer to her body, seeking out that soothing unconsciousness she could have for two more hours.

Then a little hand placed itself on her belly, followed by another one. Then she felt a little ear pressing next to the little hands. "I think I can hear him, Papa," Gracie said.

The sheets rustled as the captain went to pull the child away and keep her quiet. "You said you wouldn't wake up your mother," he said.

"I'm not waking her up, I'm waking up my brother," came the reply.

"Right now, that's the same thing. If your little brother starts kicking in there, his kicks will wake up your mother."

"That means _he'll_ have woken her up, not me."

When only silence followed Gracie's observation, Beverly took pity on Jean-Luc and spoke up. "Young lady, you aren't allowed to blame things on your brother until he's born. It isn't fair if you start now, he can't even come close to defending himself." She opened her eyes and fixed a look on her younger daughter. "Now either go back to sleep, or go back to your own room."

Gracie glanced over at her father, who had already lain back and fallen asleep again. "Papa's already asleep," she said, her surprise evident.

"He had a long night," Beverly replied. "We both did. Come here and sleep."

The young girl crawled over Beverly's legs and snuggled as close as she could with her unborn brother in the way. Gracie's breathing became deep and regular, asleep before Beverly. Before allowing herself into slumber, Beverly placed a hand on her abdomen, checking for movement. At first, she felt nothing, then there was a well-placed kick to her bladder. She wondered if this worry could hang at the back of her mind until their son was born, this worry that another future could take hold at any instant, and in that instant, take their son away. With all they had to look forward to in visiting Jean-Luc's family—now her family—in France, she didn't want this little shadow following them around. But as a mother, she knew it wouldn't disappear. Rationality had nothing on instinctive maternal protectiveness.

Gracie was looking forward to it, she was very eager to meet a cousin somewhat close to her age, since Andrew and Allie were closest and still were eleven years older than her. Jean-Luc had said his nephew Rene had recently turned twelve, still years older, but six years was much better than eleven. Wesley wouldn't be coming with them, he'd elected to stay on Caldos and continue to establish himself there. She was barely coming to terms with Wesley being a grown man, and now Andrew and Allie were approaching that point when they would break away as well, Allie heading towards whatever school she chose, while Andrew would most likely be attending the Academy. He still hadn't quite admitted it, but she saw it now, so obvious. He'd follow in his father's footsteps, even though he hadn't known he was following anyone's footsteps. And unlike his elder brother, who wasn't meant to be in Starfleet and went through a rough patch in finding that out, Andrew would be doing what he was meant to do.

Beverly had this feeling that Allie would stay in France once they had been there. She was too much like her father's family not to stay. The young woman had been content on Caldos, and would be even more content in La Barre, happy to stay planet-bound and working as humans had done for centuries before they'd discovered space travel. Andrew hadn't finished the application process for the Academy, Beverly actually wasn't even sure he'd even _started_ it, so he would return with them to the _Enterprise_. In all of their sixteen years, the twins had never been separated for any great length of time. Andrew's trip with the rest of the ship's men's epee team to do some sort of team building exercise by hiking through the rugged terrain of Andesia VI for the past two weeks had been the longest thus far. And for the past few days, Allie had become decidedly grumpy. Beverly could only imagine how unpleasant Andrew must be to be around by now.

"Beverly, wake up."

She opened her eyes. "When did I fall back asleep?"

The question was murmured more to herself than to him, but he answered anyway, eyes dancing. "Right after Gracie and I did, I imagine."

She glared at him. "Don't make fun of me before I've eaten breakfast."

"I've discovered it's generally a good principle to not make fun of you no matter what the time of day." He kissed her forehead and left the room, his task in making sure she actually got out of bed now done. As she watched him go through the door, another kick pounded against her now-full bladder. With a grimace, she rose slowly from the bed, her back aching yet again. Today would be another day to take an analgesic, as it seemed all the recent, and most likely all the upcoming days, had been.

When she walked out of the bedroom, showered and dressed for her duty shift, her step was a bit lighter as the soreness worked its way out of her system. Allie lifted her eyebrow as she watched her mother walk into the dining area. "Are you certain you're only at eight months?"

"Seven and a half," Beverly replied as she sat down to the table.

Allie frowned. "Maybe it's another set of twins."

A strained, sudden cough sounded at the other end of the table, causing three female heads to turn towards its source. "I'm fine," Jean-Luc reassured them, even as he continued to cough in order to clear his throat of the tea he'd just inhaled. "Don't mind me."

Having found another weakness in her father, Allie continued teasing him throughout breakfast, absolutely merciless. Not once did Jean-Luc get annoyed, his brow didn't furrow, he didn't get short with Allie, he continued to take her good-natured ribbing without even the slightest hint of fighting back. While it wasn't out of the ordinary for him to allow his daughters to tease him, it wasn't normal for him to let them go about it without any sort of retaliatory teasing from him. Generally, he gave as good as he got. Puzzled by this behavior, Beverly watched the interaction a bit more closely, and realized that he'd yet to really take his eyes from Allie. It was like he thought that if he looked away from her that she would disappear, blinked out of existence entirely.

Which perhaps was exactly what had happened in the future he'd experienced. That their unborn son wasn't the only child that was lost, that Allie had somehow been taken from them as well. But they had had that long talk last night, he would have told her then if anything else had happened, about anything else that would concern her. She tried to convince herself that there was nothing else to worry about, yet Jean-Luc's behavior was telling her otherwise.

He was at it again, she was certain. Protecting her without her permission. She kept her thoughts to herself as they finished their meal, the girls didn't need to see them argue, they'd witnessed enough with the Prime Directive debates alone. Beverly caught Allie on her way into her room. "Please take your sister to school for me," she said. "I need to speak with your father."

Allie frowned. "I will." She didn't ask the question that rattled through her mind.

"I'll tell you about it later, okay?" Beverly said, acknowledging the unasked question.

Her daughter nodded, then fetched her sister and was out the door. Silence fell over their quarters again. From his spot behind the desk, Jean-Luc looked slowly upwards, setting aside the padd as he did so.

Beverly faced him, letting her anger show fully. "Tell me everything. Don't you dare hold anything back this time." She didn't have to tell him what. He knew. He knew she'd caught on. She was, after all, a very observant woman.

He ran his hand over his bald scalp. "In Q's future...Allie was killed in a shuttle accident. Just a stray run of chance that went the wrong way and Allie ended up in the way of fate. Her ship had already been destroyed by the time any Starfleet vessels arrived."

"And that's what caused the divorce."

"Not exactly. You see...I...my future self, he didn't react well. He stopped talking to everyone, refusing to discuss Allie's death. He practically ignored you and eventually, you left him to pursue some sort of life after Allie died."

"Don't you realize that's exactly what you've just done? You decided to keep everything to yourself instead of talking about it, out of some sort of attempt to escape reality. So you wouldn't have to deal with it. Or so you wouldn't have to deal with me trying to deal with it, however it works out on your end." She found herself snatching up two of her padds and heading for the door. "I just can't believe after what we talked about last night, after what you just described, that you would choose to keep that from me." She paused, giving him space to say something.

He remained silent.

For a moment, she stood there watching him, growing more angry that he would continue to hide from her. The words he'd written so long ago came to mind, she hadn't thought of them in a very long time. Softly, she repeated them aloud. "_Nous sommes deux âmes, un coeur._" Two souls and one heart, he'd told her that, written it to her. Saying it aloud, she hoped it would remind him that if there was to be a heavy heart, they would share its burden equally.

He closed his eyes.

Then, having heard enough, she walked out.

In Sickbay, no one could seem to tame her temper. After three ensigns were roundly scolded for having the audacity to play a game of cricket with the holodeck safeties off which ended up with one of the ensigns with a broken cheekbone and black eye, Alyssa started to filter the patients. Only those with the most stalwart personalities were sent over to Beverly. The rest went to Selar or one of the other doctors on the day shift.

The doctor was finishing one last set of notes on one of the wayward cricket players when she heard a tap on her office door. "Yes?" she asked, not looking up.

"I just had to counsel some poor ensign that yes, he would be able to play cricket again," came the melodious voice of Deanna Troi.

"If he came to you for that, he's being overly dramatic. His cheekbone will be fine, he can play in a few days."

"It wasn't the facial injury that scared him off. He mentioned something about a snarling she-bear passing off as a Starfleet doctor."

"I'm not talking about it." Even as she said she wouldn't, she was waiting for her friend to sit down so she could.

"Go on," Troi said as she took a seat across from the doctor's desk.

Rebelling against the very instinct Jean-Luc had fallen prey to, Beverly began to talk.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

As Andrew Picard found himself looking upwards to see the slowly ascending rear end of his teammate, then downwards to see the long drop along a particularly jagged cliff, he began to question his sanity. It had been Worf's suggestion that he take the men's epee team from the _Enterprise_ on this group bonding exercise. The Klingon had said that they needed to become one as a team, but also fully acknowledge Andrew as the team captain and allow him to lead.

"But they already follow me, even when I tell them not to," Andrew had said.

"But will they follow you into battle?" Worf had asked.

"We aren't going into battle. It's a _sport_. And if we're going into battle, I wouldn't want them following me anyway. I don't know the first thing about engaging in warfare."

"Is a fencing match not a type of battle? If not of mettle or of life and death, it is one of skill and strategy."

Andrew couldn't argue with that. So he didn't and had Worf help him plan out this trip. Allie had laughed at him as they made the preparations, saying that he was a sucker for the entire thing, and didn't he realize he'd be responsible for the entire group? He hadn't thought about it. Well, he had, but it didn't really hit him about how responsible he would be for the group until their booted feet hit the planet's hard ground. He had himself, but he also had the other two members of the first team and their alternate, then the entire second team of three and an alternate. They had two ensigns, a lieutenant commander, three enlisted crewman, and one civilian from the archeology department aboard the ship. Once they'd all boarded the runabout and headed for Andesia VI, ranks had been entirely dropped and Andrew was in command.

At first he hadn't thought much about it, he ran this team on the ship, organizing the practices and lessons, hustling them through their tournaments, securing passages to the different Federation Cups, handling all the paperwork. There were bits of it he hated—paperwork came to mind—but it outweighed the thrill of watching one of his teammates overcome a psychological hang up or a move they found incredibly challenging and emerge victorious. And that victory didn't have to come from a bout at a tournament, it could happen in a practice and Andrew would feel the exact same way. Here on Andesia, nothing was related to fencing. Instead, they were scaling cliffs and mountains and running trails all alone, their only connection to the mountain range guides being a commlink.

Commlinks had nothing on the seventy foot fall that awaited a misstep while climbing a cliff. As he continued to look down, Andrew was beginning to become very appreciative and understanding of his mother's fear of heights. All the others, aside from the civilian archeologist, had Starfleet survival training, while Andrew had nothing but what he'd learned growing up on Caldos. While it had served him well thus far, he was afraid it would become a critical shortfall at some point in this trip.

At least they only had two days left. They were all near bone-tired, short-tempered, and desperately wanting to sleep in real beds and eat food that hadn't been freeze dried and then reconstituted for their consumption. This cliff was the last bit of ascent before they would begin to descend from the range on a trail that eventually looped around and deposited them where they had started. The guides had pre-arranged a time to meet them at the trailhead, and if the team didn't show by the end of the second day, they would send people to to search for them.

It didn't help matters much that it had started raining within three hours of their journey's start and had only stopped within the past thirty minutes. With the break in the rain, Andrew had decided they should finish the cliff ascent before the rain came back, as this pitch required a bit more technical skill and concentration that would be needlessly complicated in a rainstorm. He'd placed Zavala, the most experienced rock climber, at the head of the line. Andrew brought up the rear so he could coach anyone who hit a difficult spot and couldn't navigate through it. It also kept him from having to look down, a fact he wasn't about to tell anyone anytime soon.

A drop of water hit Andrew in the forehead. "Damn."

"It's raining," Zavala said from the head of the line.

"You think?" asked Moreno.

"Shut up and keep climbing," Andrew said, adjusting the safety rope and continuing his upward movement. It was the Bajoran's rear end that was much too close to his head. "And you need to move a bit faster," he told Moreno.

"Tell that to Curran. I can't climb any faster than he does and he moves slower than my grandmother," came the reply from right above Andrew.

"It's not my fault that Zav moves slower than everybody's grandmother," Curran said.

"It's called being _careful_," said Zav, halting his progress to glare down at the group under him. He'd begun to attach the line to the top of the cliff so the rest of them could get there as well. "And you lot—" he was cut off as the outcropping he was holding onto broke away and lost his grip on the rock face. His line was unattached as he'd been in the middle of moving it. As if in slow motion, his feet scraped against the side and then he was falling past the rest of the team towards the forest floor below. They all hopelessly grabbed at their safety lines, but since Zavala had detached from the main line, they had nothing that could arrest his fall. He let out a short yelp, then he made no other sound until he hit the ground. After, the only sound that dared be heard was the patter of the rain on the leaves and the slow breathing of the rest of the team.

"Shit," said Andrew, snatching a rock hammer and pin from his bag. He had to place a line so they could rappel down the side and get to Zav. The others followed his example and did the same. They were able to get down to their teammate within five minutes, and all of them thought it was five minutes too long.

"About time you showed up," Zav said, weak but conscious.

"What was it you said about safety?" Andrew asked, then looked over at Feliciano, the Starfleet lieutenant commander. He certainly would have more advanced first aid training than the rest of them.

"I was giving you an example. Now..." he paused, his hand gesturing towards his lower limbs. "I think something's wrong with my leg."

Andrew glanced at it. Something was more than wrong with it, the damn thing was so decidedly broken that he could see a bit of bone sticking out.

"You should look at it, Picard," said Feliciano.

"Me? I haven't got anything beyond standard first aid training."

"Your mother's a doctor."

"It's not _genetic_, you idiot," Andrew said, but knelt down to take another look anyway. "You wouldn't ask me to fly a starship because my father's a captain."

"Of course not. He'd ask you to command someone else to fly the ship," Curran said, handing Andrew the first aid kit.

"Right." He studied his friend's leg closely. It was definitely a part of his tibia sticking out through the material of his pants. "Curran, get some sticks."

"Can I see? How bad is it?" Zavala was pushing himself up onto his elbows, struggling to see the damage to his leg.

"You don't want to see it," Andrew said.

"No, I do. I really do."

"Seriously, you don't."

Andrew's quiet protests went ignored and Zavala managed to take a look at his leg. "Is that bone sticking out?"

"It sure is," Andrew said.

Zavala passed out and his upper body slumped back to the ground.

Andrew realized he might have replied with a bit too much enthusiasm.

"Your bedside manner needs some serious improvement," Curran said as he gave over the sticks he'd broken from the nearby trees. "What do you need those for?"

"Splint," Andrew said, looking at the leg again and frowning. "Maybe." He found the advanced medkit in Zavala's beat-up pack. The sticks got tossed aside as he snatched up the twenty-forth century limb stabilizer. Much improved over the twentieth-century version consisting of cloth tape and sticks. Nana would've been proud of the older version, his mother, not so much. The kit didn't include anything that could actually heal the leg, but the analgesic, the anti-inflammatory, and the stabilizer itself would keep Zav in good shape until they got to the meeting point. Andrew dug around in the kit some more, he was fairly sure there had to be some sort of stretcher in here. "Found it," he said, more to himself than the others.

"Found what?" asked Feliciano.

"Stretcher. We'll need it to carry him out of here." Andrew set the stretcher aside to assemble later.

"We aren't going to transport out?" Feliciano again.

"Remember? Transporters don't work with this planet's atmospheric interference," Curran said. "I think we should just set up camp here for the night."

Andrew nodded. "And we can head to the emergency landing zone at first light. We should be able to make it within two days. We'll raise up the guides on the commlink, they might be able to get a shuttle in closer, so at least Zav can get a ride out sooner."

"Will his leg get infected or anything?" Curran asked, tossing his pack to the ground and taking out one of the group's tents that he'd been assigned to carry.

Andrew fiddled with the basic medical tricorder that'd been in the kit. "No. It says that the stabilizer functions as a sterile environment and removes any and all contaminants. As long as we make sure nothing gets inflamed, he'll be okay." He ran the scanner over Zavala. "Oh. Shit. Maybe not. I think he's got a concussion." He looked closely at the readout. "Yeah. We'll have to fastpack out of here."

Curran started shoving the tent back into his pack. "Good call."

After he gave Zavala a neurostabilizer hypo, Andrew chucked the stretcher's bag over to Feliciano and Moreno. They understood his wordless order and quickly assembled the stretcher. "That last med will keep him unconscious," Andrew said. "It's the only way to keep his brain stable."

"If only we'd known it was that simple sooner," Feliciano said.

The rest of the team chuckled nervously, unsure if they should be laughing when one of them was injured, then lifted Zav onto the stretcher and secured him to make sure he didn't slide off. "We'll rotate who carries him. The anti-grav generators will help, so it will mostly be controlling the stretcher rather than carrying it," Andrew said, taking the commlink out of his jacket. He activated the link. "Picard to base."

Even though they were all safe for the moment, the time it took the guides to respond was a bit unnerving. Then, "Base here."

"This is the _Enterprise_ team, we've had someone take a fall from cliff delta-seven, we'll need an emergency shuttle evac from meet point omega."

"Understood. What type of injuries do you have?"

"Preliminary scans show a mid-grade concussion and we've a confirmed compound fracture of the right leg. No major bleeding. We'll be underway for the meeting point in a few minutes." Andrew read the padd Feliciano had just given him. "We should be able to make it there in sixteen hours."

"There will be a shuttle and a medical team there when you arrive. Notify us if your injured party becomes critical. Base out."

Andrew pocketed the commlink again, shrugged on his pack, and stood. "All right, let's head out." He took one of the first shifts carrying Zavala's stretcher. The first four hours went by quietly, each of them in their own thoughts. Andrew went over the accident in his head, repeating it over and over, wanting to figure out how Zavala had fallen. If anything, if it could've been prevented. Eventually his thoughts moved away from the accident, because that's exactly what it had been—an accident, something no one could have really stopped.

Within two weeks, he and his family would be in France, visiting his father's brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Visiting the house and town where his father grew up, though Andrew was having trouble imagining that his stern father had ever been a child. He knew an awful lot about his Scots heritage since he'd grown up on Caldos, but of his personal French ancestry, he only knew what he'd read, and now he'd meet the actual people. The past few months had been eye-openers for both him and his sisters, meeting their father, having their father finally marry their mother, moving away from Caldos and moving aboard the _Enterprise_, learning how to live together as a family. At times, it was easy, but other times, it got incredibly hard. Both his parents were stubborn and idealistic and there were times when their views became diametrically opposed. When that happened, it was like waiting for a massive storm to break, and instinctively, he wanted to go hide in a corner.

But what Counselor Troi had ended up explaining to him was that the three of them served as diplomatic ties between their parents. Whereas before they were around, the captain and the doctor would go for days, sometimes weeks, at loggerheads. During that time, the ship's community would be miserable. But now, it seemed that one of the three of them would speak up, generally Allie, and make them see reason and the incident would pass within a day or two. So most of the time, it wasn't so bad.

The rain had started to fall in earnest again. Andrew called a halt long enough for them to take a breather and pull on their rain gear, then he switched places with Thibodeaux on stretcher duty and had the enlisted crewman lead the line.

"So, your sister..." Curran said from the stretcher corner next to him.

"What about her?" asked Andrew.

"Is she with anyone?"

Andrew glared at him. "She's _five_. That's just not right."

Curran's dark brown eyes went wide. "Not your _little_ sister, I was talking about your twin sister."

"Are you kidding me?" Moreno asked from his position at the front of the stretcher. "Are you actually saying you'd dare to date the captain's daughter? That's got to be one of the most intimidating situations I could ever imagine. Hell, the Kobayashi Maru's got nothing on it. I'd rather be in Zav's place than in the shoes of the guy who wants to date Allie."

"Don't you think it's odd that you guys are discussing dating while our teammate is unconscious right beside us?" Andrew asked, desperately trying to change the subject. Not only did he not want to discuss his sister, but he hated it when the subject of his father being the ship's captain came up.

"Don't worry, it's Zav who's interested in Allie. I was just asking for him," Curran said. "He won't mind."

It was part of what bonded the team—they all tended towards gallows humor, separating themselves from intense situations by cracking jokes instead of truly allowing the implications of the situation set in. It was easier that way, for all of them.

"He'll mind when she wakes up in Sickbay and finds himself nose to nose with Captain Picard and being asked, 'Just what are your intentions towards my daughter?'" Moreno said.

Andrew couldn't help it, he snorted with laughter. "Honestly, it's my mother he should worry about, not my father."

Curran went pale. "Oh, shit, I completely forgot about her."

"How the hell could you do that?" Thibodeaux had apparently been listening to the conversation even way up at the head of the group, and now started walking backwards to face them. "How could anyone forget about the Chief Medical Officer? It's why so many of us have no problems going to sickbay for any sort of injury or sickness, just for the chance to be seen by her, or even just to catch a glimpse of her le—"

"That's _enough_," Andrew said. "That's my mother, you assholes."

"Oh, right. Sorry, mate," said Moreno, turning back around to walk forwards again. "Won't happen again."

A few minutes passed with only the sounds of their footsteps on the dead leaves and branches scattered on the dirt of the trail. Then Curran slid a mischievous look across to his team captain. "Can we at least talk about Allie that way?"

The answer he got from Andrew was a solid punch to the arm. "Go ahead. Then I'll tell her everything you say and you can deal with her coming after you. And I'll tell you what, she fights _mean_."

The next few hours passed more quickly as the chatting and joking and banter kept their minds occupied and away from the more serious matters at hand. They stopped for a half hour rest, then continued to trudge onward until they could hear the guides and the rumble of the landing shuttle. Guides walked towards them as they came into the clearing. Chucking his thumb in the direction of the shuttle, the lead guide said, "_Enterprise_ arrived in orbit about twenty minutes ago. We notified them of the accident and they sent down their own shuttle, so you'll just go straight back to the ship." He stuck out his hand. "I hope you had a good time on Andesia."

Andrew shook the man's hand. "I did, but I'm not sure about my friend."

Medics and nurses had already gotten out of the shuttle and taken over for the team. "He'll be fine," one of them said, passing a scanner over the unconscious Zavala. "You guys did a good job patching him up."

"That was all Picard," Curran said as he climbed into the shuttle.

Feliciano gave Andrew a friendly shove as he walked past him. "All him."

His comment was followed by another shove, this time from Moreno, who added his own comment. "Seriously, he did a great job out there."

Unable to keep the blush from rising to his cheeks, Andrew studied the ground as he made his way over to the shuttle. Once inside, he was met by a tricorder wielding Doctor Selar. He scowled. "I'm not injured, I don't need to be scanned."

"And this scan makes sure that you, indeed, are uninjured," Selar said. "It is illogical for you to protest." She pointed to the benches aligned along the bulkheads. "I advise you to take a seat while we return to the _Enterprise_."

Andrew didn't bother arguing with the deputy chief medical officer and took the advised seat. Since there were no windows in the cargo area, the flight back held nothing of interest. The time had passed by so quickly that Andrew had barely had time to adjust to the idea of returning to the ship. Already, his eyelids were threatening to fall shut for twenty-four hours straight. Maybe thirty-two. The adrenaline had faded away and once they landed on the deck of the main shuttlebay, the team shuffled from the shuttle and headed towards their respective quarters without anything more than a few nodded good-byes. One of the medics admonished all of them to report to Sickbay within a day in order to have a full workup.

Andrew shouldered his pack and started for the bay's doors, intent on following Zavala's stretcher until his mother strode through the doors. "Hey," he said, then he did a double take. "Holy shit, you were _not _that big when I left."

She stopped short, her arms still outstretched. "That's not very nice."

"Are you sure it's just one?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Beverly wrapped her arms around him. "It's good to see you home," she said. Then she gave his biceps a squeeze and stepped back. "And your sister said the same thing to your father this morning. He nearly choked on his tea."

He grinned. "I'll bet he did."

The doctor studied her son closely. "When's the last time you got some sleep?"

Andrew frowned. She'd asked an awfully complicated question, he tried counting back to the last time they'd set up camp but couldn't even remember when that was.

"Wrong answer," she said.

He blinked. "I haven't given you an answer yet."

Beverly put her arm around his shoulders and led him out the doors. "That was my point. If it took you that long to figure out an answer, then it's been to long. You're coming home, eating, and going straight to bed."

"Yes ma'am." They spent the ride in the turbolift in companionable silence. When his mother had first started showing, it had felt odd to him to see her like that. Not because he didn't know what all went on in a pregnancy, but because he hadn't seen his mother like that, not even when he thought she was only his cousin and not his mother. He'd also spent more time curtailing the impulse he had to be more protective of his mother, because somehow, seeing a woman pregnant made her more delicate-seeming. Which, he knew, his mother was certainly not delicate and would let him know fully if he ever thought to indicate that he thought she was. Sleep crept into his eyes again and he resisted the urge he had to rub them to stay awake.

When they walked into their quarters, Gracie was already waiting for them and ran at her brother full-tilt. "Andrew!" she shouted as she jumped at him. He picked her up before she ran smack into his legs and hugged her.

"I wasn't gone for that long," he said, putting her back down, sleep moving away for the moment. Conal was already bumping into his legs and he absentmindedly greeted his faithful Irish Wolfhound.

"Long _enough_," his little sister said, then walked back over to the replicator. "I'm in charge of dinner."

Beverly looked over at Allie. "Is this true?"

Allie shrugged. "She asked. I didn't see the harm in it." Then she looked over at her twin. "I hear you've got aspirations on being a doctor."

Andrew whipped his head around, gaping. "How the hell did you find out about that so fast? We just arrived fifteen minutes ago and you've already got all the gossip."

She gave him a brilliant smile. "I have my ways. But I want to hear the story from you."

"I had no idea you wanted to become a doctor, Andrew," his mother said.

Andrew dropped his pack and sat down heavily on the sofa. "I _don't_. Whoever told either of you that is lying. What happened on the trip only solidifies the fact that I should never, ever become a physician."

His twin plopped down next to him and threw her arms around him. "So tell me the story."

He looked over at the table where his mother had gone over to help Gracie with dinner, making sure she chose reasonable dishes for them to eat. Maybe she'd call Allie off since he needed to eat and sleep and nothing else. "Do tell," Beverly said. "I'd love to hear it."

No help there.

Reluctantly, he told them what'd happened with Zavala and how he'd ended up being the one who had to treat him until they got him to base. Allie hadn't stopped laughing since he'd gotten to the bit about his lack of bedside manner, and he could hear his mother trying to choke back her own laughter. "So," he finished, "Whoever told you I wanted to be a doctor was completely wrong." He looked over at their mother, who'd stood to her full height and was glancing between the three of them.

"Are any of you even remotely interested in medicine?" she asked.

Andrew gave her a steady look. "I'd rather have my eye slowly pulled from its socket by a Tarcassian razorbeast with my optic nerve still attached than become a doctor."

Beverly frowned at him, then looked down at Gracie. "What about you?"

Gracie's brow furrowed. "I'm remotely interested," she finally said. When she got questioning looks from the rest of her family, she clarified. "I mean, I'd at least like my eye to be detached from the nerve."

Andrew snorted at their mother's outraged look and Allie laughed with him. Dinner went quickly and he found himself back on the sofa, and when sleep crept up behind him and pounced, he didn't stand a chance.

* * *

Jean-Luc Picard stared at neutral gray wall of the turbolift as it headed towards deck eight. The wall had become a mirror to his face, keeping it his captain's mask as Counselor Troi had stepped into the turbolift behind him as he'd made his way off the bridge. He'd been avoiding her for his entire shift and she knew it as well as he did. So when he headed for the turbolift, she brought her conversation with Will to an immediate halt and followed the captain. And now he stood next to her in the impossibly small turbolift. "I don't want to talk, if that's what you're here for," he said.

"It's not me who you need to be talking to."

Breaking his mask, he raised an eyebrow at her.

"You need to start telling your family everything that's important, Captain," she said. "Both you and Beverly have held critical information from one another often enough that you know the damage that it does is more than the damage you think that it will prevent."

He scowled. She was right. "It seems," he said, his voice barely registering above the thrum of the 'lift. "That what we perceive may happen always presents itself as much worse than what would happen if we just spoke openly. Each time, even if you know intellectually, that it wouldn't be so."

_Nous sommes deux âmes, un coeur._ He'd written that to her, in the note he'd left behind when he'd walked away that night. It had all seemed so bleak for both of them, as things tended towards in the winter. As bleak as the future he'd seen courtesy of Q. What he'd written in French, it meant that he saw them as two souls sharing one heart. And now, studying his history with her, at what he'd said and not said, done and not done, he hadn't acted as if he believed what he wrote. That if he truly believed they were one heart, he wouldn't be so desperately trying to keep his own separate from hers. He had to share even if it meant sharing his burdens in addition to his joy.

"Yes," Troi said.

The look his gave her this time was quizzical.

She smiled. "Your emotions, you stopped blocking me and allowed me to feel what you were feeling as you came to you decided."

He had, but he didn't remember making the decision. Yet even though he didn't, he knew it to be the correct one to make. Another step in how he'd decided he would act from now on. To give her an answer, he nodded.

The counselor's reply was to keep her silence, she'd grown to know him well, and knew that he needed no more words. Troi departed the 'lift on deck seven and he on deck eight. Andrew was home, his shuttle had arrived hours earlier, when Picard was ensconced in his ready room under that continuously growing mound of paperwork required for his and Beverly's two month leave. That, and he didn't know how to act around Beverly then, not with how she'd walked out on him that morning. And he'd deserved it for not opening up to her the night before. She deserved to know what had happened to Allie in Q's future, and deserved to know as soon as she could've been told, not when he decided it would be time. He also couldn't hide behind his mistake, he'd just have to face it, and face his wife in doing so.

The doors parted and revealed his son fast asleep on the sofa, the dog curled at the foot of it. Allie had spread padds all around her in an armchair, her brow furrowed in thought, a stylus tucked behind her ear as she read. His youngest was nowhere to be seen. Beverly, however, was at the terminal behind the desk and looked up at the sound of the doors. Her gaze followed his to the boy asleep on the couch. "He hadn't slept for over twenty-four hours," the doctor said, answering the question in his eyes.

Picard nodded. "I read the report." Then he met his wife's eyes. "How long has he been asleep?"

"Around four hours."

He frowned. "How bad would it be to wake him up?"

Beverly stood. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Then what—"

He interrupted Beverly's question. "I mean, I was wrong. Earlier."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

At the same time, Allie had perked up out of her studying and mirrored her mother's look. "About what?" she asked, leaning over and hitting Andrew on the leg with the padd.

Andrew spoke without opening his eyes to see who'd hit him. "Go away."

"Wake up," Allie said, hitting him again.

"Let me sleep."

"Andrew," the captain said, employing his captainly tone of voice.

One gray eye opened, squinting against the light. "Oh, _you_ I have to listen to." He sat up and ignored the glare he'd earned from his twin. "What's going on?"

As Beverly took a seat next to their son, Picard found himself a seat in another armchair and before he told them all what had happened in the future, he prefaced it with what he'd told the doctor earlier, so that an argument about the Prime Directive wouldn't immediately spring up. "I want you to remember that I'm telling you this because the future's already changed, and it won't happen this way. And that in telling you, it gives us a chance to make sure that some things never happen." He glanced quickly at Beverly to make sure it would be okay to speak about it, so that if Gracie were at home, they could be certain that she would only hear what she needed to at her young age. His wife said nothing, so he figured their youngest must be asleep. So he told them how he'd traveled back and forth through time, how he had stopped the anomaly, and now that future wouldn't happen. He told them about how their younger brother died, how he and Beverly had divorced, then he told them the reason why. "Your mother and I...in this future, we separated after Allie's accident."

"My accident?" His daughter's look was sharp.

Picard found a new thing to add to his list of things that were incredibly hard to do in his life—look his daughter in the eye and tell her that she had died. "You died in a shuttle accident."

The silence that had stepped between Jean-Luc and Beverly that morning returned as they all waited for Allie to comprehend what she'd been told. She hadn't broken eye contact with her father, instead, her eyes became more contemplative as she looked at him.

"You hid, didn't you?" she asked.

"What?" She couldn't be accusing him of hiding while her shuttle was destroyed, as if he would stand by and allow something like that to happen.

"In Q's sick, twisted version of the future, after I died in the accident. You hid yourself, didn't you? Not physically, I mean, I'm sure you walked around and did the things that you've always done. But everything else, you hid, you hid it all behind that mask of control, didn't you? Drove everyone away?"

"I don't see how answering that question has anything to do with you dying." He hated saying those words, even though he knew it was a future long in the past, the words still managed to produce a great amount of fear.

"It has everything to do with it. When I died in that future, you did exactly that, didn't you?"

He saw that she wasn't going to let it go, saw the challenge in her blue eyes, telling him that if he kept up with this notion that he didn't have to answer her questions, he had another thing coming. "Yes."

Allie inclined her head towards Andrew. "He does that. You're just like him." Then she frowned. "No, he's just like you. However that works out. And I hate it. I'm betting you closed off and hid and drove everyone away from you so they couldn't see how upset you were. And I'm also betting that's exactly what caused your divorce. Mom finally up and left because she needed to live whatever of her life was left, while you were determined to wither away in your self-imposed isolation."

Picard knew the shock showed on his face, that Allie could be that perceptive about a situation that, for her, had never occurred. Or even that the young woman could glean that much information about her father and his relationships with others. "Yes."

Allie turned to her mother. "And I'm betting you blamed yourself for it?" Then she seemed to remember that this Beverly hadn't been a participant in Q's game, so she turned back to her father. "Did she?"

"Yes." No other answer came to mind.

"So that's why you told us," she said. "I don't know if you knew it at first, but none of it has to do with exact events that occurred. It's all about how we all reacted to them. How you need to stop hiding."

The depth in Allie's eyes was unnerving. Someone her age should not have the understanding that she had.

"Yes," he said.

Then she went quiet.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She gave him a warm smile. "I'm fine. That future won't happen, the timeline has already changed. I'll admit, it was a bit disconcerting at first, but I'm okay now." She gathered up her pile of padds. "I think I'll be going to bed."

When her bedroom doors closed behind her, Andrew spoke. "She grew up a lot faster than I did."

"Don't worry," Beverly said. "It's normal for girls to mature faster than boys."

Andrew rolled his eyes. "That isn't—"

"—what you meant. I know. But you can also barely keep your eyes open. So why don't you go and sleep and we can discuss it tomorrow?" Beverly said.

He nodded, then got up from the sofa and went to his room without another word.

That left Beverly and Jean-Luc alone in the living area, studying one another. "You actually told them," she whispered.

"I did," he said, getting up from his chair and sitting next to her. "Their mother taught me a very valuable lesson today."

Beverly was looking at Allie's closed bedroom doors. "It's still very disconcerting," she said. "It's like we've won a lottery, or we've just been rescued with only seconds to spare, or had a near-miss with a groundcar. So that even though you're standing safely on the sidewalk, you're still afraid that somehow a car will jump the curb and hit you." She paused, her voice low and scratchy. "Or her."

The captain wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, offering her support in his embrace. "Nous sommes deux âmes, un coeur" he whispered in her ear. "When I forget that is when our days become endlessly dark and without hope of redemption. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"We'll be okay," she said.

"Yes." And again, no other reply had come to mind.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Summer held on to the shortening days as winter slowly stole them from her grasp. When winter had been distracted by autumn, summer had planted her feet for once last stand, warming the breezes and the days to last through the harvest. Beverly felt the struggle of the seasons as soon as she stepped foot from the shuttle transport to the dirt road leading to her husband's family home. As she inhaled the air sweetened by the unharvested grapes, she remembered what she missed as she lived her life in the emptiness of space. This was it. This was home.

Her hand absently rested on her abdomen, the son inside her gave a kick in reply. He recognized it too, recognized his home. Two weeks had gone by, a rush of finalizing paperwork with Starfleet, finalizing paperwork with the children's schoolteachers, finalizing the medical care she would have while in France. Slowly, the specter of Q's future had faded away, a pale shadow of what it had been. Allie and Andrew had stopped bringing it up, and now only in the most brief of moments did Beverly catch the thoughts bothering them when they thought no one was looking. She saw it, in their eyes, despite them having different eye colors, their expressions were the same. The two of them were best friends, they'd been best friends since before they'd even been born. Just the idea of them losing one another had shaken them deeply. Beverly hated imagining what it would be like to lose Jean-Luc—and they had been best friends for only fifteen years. Before that, there had been others. But Andrew and Allie, they'd known nothing else.

They hadn't argued as much the past couple of weeks, certainly, they teased each other just as much as before, but they'd yet to have a shouting match, something that used to occur at least once a week. Allie had become a tad more introspective, something she usually left to her brother. Then Andrew had become very attentive to Allie's moods, now even more perceptive than usual when something bothered his sister. Beverly, for one, was very happy to know that the timeline that was the road to Q's future had already been broken to bits and would never happen.

The setting sun winked from behind the pink and purple fingers of clouds as the breeze brushed their cheeks again. "It smells good," Gracie said, then peered up at her father, her hand in his. "Does it always smell good here?"

"Not if you're stuck behind any horses," Allie said.

Jean-Luc's brow crinkled as he shot a glare of annoyance in his elder daughter's direction. Allie shrugged at him, entirely nonplussed about his irritation.

"I forgot you had horses here," Andrew said from his spot standing behind Beverly.

"Technically, Robert has horses here," Picard said, his gaze carrying down the dirt road. "While I have nothing here."

As the Starfleet captain looked down the road leading to his childhood home, Beverly walked up behind him and threaded her arms through his. "That isn't true, Jean-Luc," she said.

"The vineyard and all the property is Robert's. My father willed it to him as his inheritance as the eldest son." Picard paused, picking over his thoughts. "But that wasn't the only reason. The _real_ reason was because I didn't follow in my family's trade. Because I departed from Picard tradition, he didn't think it fit that I ever own the vineyard, even a part of it. The only reason it would ever come into my possession would be if Robert and then Rene died. But it shouldn't, they're both perfectly healthy. Besides that, I have no plans to retire anytime soon and become a vintner." He looked at her steadily. "So I've nothing here."

She pressed his cheek to his. "That isn't true. This is your home. It will always be your home. It's where, in the end, you're meant to be." She reached out and pulled Gracie in closer, hugging her to her body. "It's where we're all meant to be, I think. Working this earth in some way."

Comments came from behind them. "Well, I'm feeling a bit left out. How are you feeling, Andrew?"

"Somewhat put off, Allie," he replied.

Gracie turned around to face her brother. "You've got perfectly good legs," she told him. "You can easily walk over here and join us."

As she attempted to cover her laughter, Beverly moved her arm away from Gracie.

Meanwhile, the tall boy stared down at his little sister, who stared defiantly back up at him. "Fine," he said, then strode over, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. Gracie took to hitting him on the back with her small fists, but her brother paid no attention to her, and carried on a conversation with his father as if she were no bother. "So the house is what way?"

Jean-Luc nodded in the direction of the long stretch of dirt path. "That way."

Andrew nodded back and set off down the road, with Gracie beginning to resort to name calling as the beating hadn't worked. Behind them, Conal trotted happily. The smile was warmth on the doctor's face.

"How far away is it?" Allie asked, now walking between them.

"Not far. Half a kilometer after that bend," the captain answered. "The last time I was here, Rene met me halfway there, after following me behind the hedge for some time."

"Do you think—" Allie's question was cut off by a shriek from her sister.

"Somebody's in the bushes!" Gracie shouted. "Andrew, put me _down!_"

"I'm not falling for that," Andrew said. He didn't put her down, but he did follow to where she was pointing, walking over to investigate.

"Don't bring me with you!"

"Don't worry, I'll protect you," he said, using his free arm to brush aside some branches and poke his head inside the foliage.

"You'll throw me and run, that's what you'll do."

"No, I'll _drop_ you and run." With that, he picked her off his shoulder and deposited her behind the hedge. "Take a look around in there would you? You're just the right size for it. I'm too tall."

Instead of doing as her brother asked, Gracie came barreling through the hedge and managed to knock Andrew to the ground. "That wasn't funny! What if someone had been in there?" She glared at him, nose to nose, but he was laughing too hard to reply.

Beverly heard footsteps on the path near them and turned. A young boy stood there, perhaps twelve years old. Almost right away, she knew who he was. He had to be Rene, he had the same gray eyes as Jean-Luc, the same eyes as Andrew and Gracie.

"Hello, Nephew," the boy said, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Hello, Uncle," the captain said. "This is around the spot where you tried to rob me a few years ago."

Finally, Rene gave a full smile. "I figured I'd give it another go, but I'm afraid I'm not very good at highway robbery." He glanced down the path to where Andrew and Gracie were wrestling. "Do they always do that?"

Picard followed his nephew's look. "That's perfectly normal for siblings. Don't worry, they like one another just fine."

Beverly was reminded strongly of Wesley, how only children could be so amazed and affronted by the strong emotions that siblings seemed to wield at one another. Arguing, fighting, wrestling, talking late into the night, teasing one another, helping one another, so many things wrapped up in the relationship of siblinghood. Like Wesley, Rene had never experienced it. So coming upon Andrew and Gracie wrestling in the road, it might seem to the uninitiated that they hated one another. But quite the opposite was true. Andrew would never let anything happen to either of his sisters if he had anything to do with it. And both of his sisters were the same way about him.

"They've a strange way of showing it," Rene said, looking back at the captain.

"They're strange anyway," Allie said. They were, however, very adept at throwing one another under the bus.

Rene turned to her. "You must be my cousin..." he searched for the name. "Natalie?"

"Allie," she corrected him. "I only get called Natalie when I'm in trouble."

"Which is more often than you'd think," Beverly said.

"And you must be my aunt Beverly." Rene's grin grew wider. "Maman said she's very eager to meet you." He paused, doing his best not to gape at Beverly's size, and failing rather miserably. "And, um, whoever is in there." His brow furrowed. "Can you even _see_ your toes?"

Beverly did her best not to level a glare at her nephew, it wouldn't do when meeting him for the first time, but she couldn't believe the words that had just wandered out of his mouth. And it didn't help matters that Allie let out a loud snort of laughter before she managed to clamp her hand on her mouth, while Jean-Luc was looking over his nephew's brown-haired head, his eyes laughing at her plight.

Allie did the speaking for her, putting her arm around Rene's shoulders. "Oh, I like you already," she said, putting herself between her mother and her cousin. "But you and I need to have a chat about upsetting pregnant women."

"That chat with Allie won't be terribly pleasant either," Andrew said, dusting himself off as he walked up to the group. Gracie nudged him as she went by and he plucked a dry leaf out of her hair.

The doctor nearly started to feel sorry for Rene, being an only child suddenly thrust into the world of siblings. Then she tried to look down at her feet, realized she couldn't see her damn toes, and that was the end of feeling any sympathy for him. That boy could deal with whatever his cousins threw at him.

Allie flashed a smile at her mother, then spoke to her cousin. "The tall one is my twin brother, Andrew. The short one is our younger sister, Gracie."

"I am not short. Once and for all, I would like to establish, that I am _not short_. I'm well within the median percentile for my age group." She glared up at her sister, the same as she'd done with her brother. "I did the research."

"I bet you wouldn't be so defensive if you weren't so short," Andrew said.

Gracie whirled on him. "That's it. I'm not speaking to you anymore." Then she turned to her cousin. "And you're Rene?" She peered up at him. Unlike her older siblings, she only had to look up a few inches. "How old are you?"

"Nearly twelve." He peered down at her. "What's it like to live on a starship?" he asked. Gracie's eyes lit up and the two of them began chattering away, quickly getting ahead of the rest of them on the road.

Allie patted Andrew on the back. "I think she's moved on already," she said.

"I know," he said, watching the two younger children walk around the bend. "I'll have a good cry later." He looked at his father. "So is that what a Picard is supposed to look like? All that brown hair? Well, I mean, before it falls out."

Beverly managed to keep a straight face as Jean-Luc ignored the dig at his hairline. "I'll have you know, his mother has red hair."

"_Does_ she?" Allie asked. "Oh, that's interesting. So you and your brother both married redheads?" She didn't give him time to reply. "This gets better and better. I bet you and my uncle are more alike than either of you would ever admit."

The glare the captain gave her told them everything—and just how right she was. They were quiet as they rounded the bend in the road themselves, then the house came into view, the old building standing proudly as if it hadn't changed since the nineteenth century. As Beverly watched, a curly haired redheaded woman around her age came outside, seeing the two approaching children first—Rene, her own child, and her niece Gracie. Immediately, they fell into cheerful conversation, not falling into any sort of uncomfortable silence. Gracie had that way about her, she could get anyone to talk.

Marie noticed the rest of the group as the drew up to the grass. "Jean-Luc!" she said, then went up to him, kissing him on each cheek. "It's been so long." Her smile was genuine and grew warmer as she looked over at Beverly. "And I see you did not drink that wine alone." She extended her arms and the two women shared a hug, as much as one could be managed. "I am so happy to finally meet you." Her eyes slid over to where her son was talking with the others. "And I will speak to him later about his lack of tact."

Introductions were finished all around. Jean-Luc explained that their belongings would be arriving by transport within the hour, as with Beverly's rapidly progressing pregnancy and Gracie's small size, carrying enough with them for two months of a stay would be difficult. "Where's Robert?" he finally asked.

Marie and Beverly exchanged looks, they both knew Jean-Luc had been wanting to ask that question first. "He's out in the vineyard, harvesting with the rest of the workers we've hired on for the harvest. I decided to take the day off to welcome the rest of our family. He'll come in once the sun has finished setting. Come in, come in, I'll show you to your rooms."

The captain's childhood home had more than enough room for the extended family. The house had been built long ago to accomodate much larger families than the one that inhabited it now. Beverly watched as their own children settled in easily, the familiarity of this home much like their home on Caldos. It carried the smell of old wooden floors along with the fresh scents of the plant life outside.

Suddenly, she was aware of just how stale a starship's recycled air could be. More smells wafted from the kitchen as she and Jean-Luc tread back down the stairs. She turned to him. "She's cooking with real food, isn't she? No replicator?" Then she answered her own question. "You told me before, I'd completely forgotten."

He couldn't hide his smile. "You were, as I recall, a bit ill at the time."

"And I couldn't figure out what possessed you to tell me right at that moment."

Picard shrugged. "It's when I remembered."

"It's awfully quiet." Beverly frowned, glancing around the living room, then peeking into the dining room, the library, Robert's office. Jean-Luc had gone into the kitchen, she followed him after she decided she wouldn't be locating her children anytime soon. "I haven't a clue where they've gone," she said as she walked through the door.

Marie looked up. "Rene took them out to the barn and the other buildings. Actually, he was only going to take Gracie, but she managed to coax the other two to come with them. So now they've all gone. She's a little charmer, that one."

"I only hope you can see past her guile," the captain said.

"I hardly think she's got any sort of guile in her," his sister-in-law replied.

He sighed, leaning against one of the counters. "That's the problem."

Beverly smiled. There was something about fathers and daughters, how when the relationship between the two was a good one, that each of them had the other wrapped around their finger. While he had the ability to be stern with Gracie, Jean-Luc also had a large amount of trouble scolding her to any great degree. Luckily for them, Gracie had yet to get herself into any significant amount of trouble. Like her elder sister, she had a fairly level head.

Jean-Luc's look had gone off in thought again, then snapped back to reality, and right to Marie. "Robert's upset, isn't he," he said, with finality, no question in his tone.

Tossing a towel onto another counter, Marie heaved a sigh. "I honestly don't know what's wrong with him. I think he's got his head...well, he isn't seeing reason. But he was fine, even excited...at least as excited as Robert outwardly gets...about you coming home. Then as it got closer to when you would all arrive, he became cold again. Sometimes, I just don't understand him at all." She crossed her arms. "It must be something with Picard men. You're both like that, you know."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Marie," the captain said.

"Yes, you do," Beverly said.

His annoyed look told her an argument was coming, but it was interrupted before it even started by Gracie running into the kitchen. She skidded to a halt in front of the three adults. "The shuttle is here with our things and there's a two week old colt in the barn and he's got the longest spindly legs for his little body and he's got a white blaze right down his face and I want to go back and see him but I have to get my stuff and unpack, and you should too." Then she was back out the door, brushing past Allie. "Don't go back in there!" Gracie admonished her sister. "We've got to unload so we can go back outside!"

Beverly wasn't sure if the child had even taken a breath. Allie shared a smile with her. "She's actually never seen a colt before," she explained. "So she's, um, a bit excited."

"A bit?" Jean-Luc raised his eyebrow at her as he headed for the door. "All though, she is right, we do need to unload so the drivers can move on."

The doctor followed him into the living room, where they found Andrew with his fencing bag already open, his hands moving through the equipment as he inspected it for damage. It didn't take long for the rest of them to unload, they hadn't brought a lot, but just enough that carrying it by hand would have been difficult. All three children had brought fencing gear, Andrew and Allie had looked into directories in the village and located the same salle that their father had fenced in as a youth. When Andrew had contacted the coach, the man had been delighted at the prospect of three more Picards fencing with them, even if only for two months. Only briefly had the the three of them entertained the idea of taking a break. But Gracie had only started months ago, and Andrew found that one of the Federation Cups was taking place in Paris a week after they were all scheduled to depart for the _Enterprise_. So he'd taken it upon himself to speak with Marie about it, and of course she immediately advised Andrew and Allie to stay for the extra week at the vineyard so they could compete.

While this was supposed to be a vacation for all of them, Andrew remained intent on keeping up his training. Allie aimed to train as well as compete, but her own dedication had waned as of late. Beverly had noticed and asked her about it only days before. Allie had explained that while she loved the sport and would never give it up, she wouldn't have the time to dedicate to it while she was in school and once she was practicing as a vet. "I figure," she said, "That it would be easier to start winding down now instead of just coming to a full stop immediately."

Andrew had noticed as well, but seemed to understand his sister's reasoning without even having to ask her about it. He and Allie shared that connection, at least with the deeper things, where words weren't necessary between them to communicate. It still amazed their mother to see it, especially when Andrew accepted, without question, his twin beginning to drop away from the sport they'd always done together.

"I'm going to go look for Robert," the captain said after he'd returned from the second floor, then was out the door before either Marie or Beverly could make eye contact.

Marie sighed. "It just doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?" Allie hadn't been far behind her father on the stairs. Her brother and sister, however, were occupied upstairs by fixing equipment that'd been damaged in transport, their cousin looking curiously on their work. Wisely, no one had mentioned to Gracie how quickly she'd broken her vow not to speak to her brother.

"Jean-Luc and Robert." Marie drew her eyes away from the closed door. "When Jean-Luc left the last time he visited, the two of them were agreeable with one another. Since they'd been at odds their entire lives, agreeable was quite a large step in the right direction. But now it seems they're right back where they started, locking horns with one another. I don't see what's changed."

"It makes perfect sense," Allie said.

Both of the adult women waited for the young lady's forthcoming answer.

She obliged, and answered with a smirk. "They're Picards. It's just the way they are. I think the only Picards that make sense are the women."

The thunder of feet drumming down the stairs announced Gracie's arrival. "Let's go back to the barn," she said, looking at her sister.

"Except maybe the youngest ones," Allie said to her aunt and mother.

"The youngest ones what?" Gracie asked, already suspicious. "You were talking about me, weren't you?"

"Not at first." Allie held out her hand. "Come on, I know you want to see the colt again."

Gracie looked at the other two women. "You should come with us," she said.

Marie shook her head. "I would, but I've seen him enough times, and I've got dinner to finish."

"Do you need any help?" Beverly asked.

"No. And if I did, I wouldn't let you help anyway. I think you've already been on your feet for too long, so having you help me out in the kitchen and stay on your feet wouldn't be allowable." She smiled at Beverly's immediate frown. "And I know you're a doctor, and a good one at that, but that's the way I feel. You'll just have to deal with it. But, if you insist on helping, you can come in once you've come back from the barn, and if you agree to help while _seated_, I'd be more than happy to accept it." Then she disappeared back into the kitchen.

"She's married to a Picard, all right," Allie said. "Only stubborn women can contend with men as hard-headed as this family's."

"I heard that!" came Marie's shout from the kitchen. "And you're entirely right."

Laughing, they walked down to to the barn, Conal loping beside Gracie. Allie brought the colt and the mare out into the corral so they could run. Gracie climbed onto the fence to watch them, absolutely fascinated. Beverly realized that her youngest had been right, the young horse was all legs and very little body.

"They remind me of Andrew when he got his growth spurt," Allie said. "Colts, I mean. He went from being of normal proportions to his legs and arms being too long for his body. Took him awhile to grow into them, and it was fun to watch as he tried to not be clumsy. He wasn't very successful." Conal had seated himself next to her, and she absently scratched his head.

"Wesley was the same way," Beverly said. "Sometimes, it was very hard to keep a straight face. I think we as women do have it easier in adolescence with that part. We grow at a more steady pace and are able to keep up with the changes in our spatial awareness." She felt the twinge of regret, that she hadn't been able to watch Andrew go through that early awkward stage, and watch Allie try and be nice to him as he went through it. But the heaviness in her belly reminded her that with this one, she would be able to watch all of that, from first steps to the first stumble into adolescence and onward.

Behind the corral, Jean-Luc appeared from within the rows of vines, looking decidedly frustrated.

"I don't think it went well with Robert," Allie said. "Are they a lot alike?"

"I don't know. I've never met your uncle," Beverly said. She wished she had, especially after the Borg incident, when Jean-Luc had gone to visit his family here. But she'd had so many other things to take care of on the ship and in storage in San Francisco that she had declined to go when he invited her. That, and she hadn't wanted to see him watch his brother's family, all while regretting not having his own. "I do know that your cousin Rene wants to join Starfleet when he's older and Robert is very opposed to it, much like their father was opposed to Jean-Luc entering Starfleet."

"It sounds like Robert is worried that no one would be left to run the vineyard."

"I think that's part of it. Your grandfather wanted both of his sons to run the vineyard together after he died, but your father wouldn't have it. He didn't want to stay, his dreams were elsewhere."

Allie frowned. "But Robert shouldn't be so bothered by it now. I mean, even though _his_ son might not run the vineyard, one of us might." She looked out past her father and into the long lines of trellises. "_I _might. I think I'd like to have a talk with my uncle sometime soon."

Beverly looked over at her. "I thought you wanted to be a vet."

"I do," she said, nodding. "But I can easily do both, especially around here. It just feels right here. It's home."

"It is." The even timbre of the captain's voice confirmed his daughter's opinion as he reached them. "We should go eat supper. Robert's on his way now."

The walk back was quiet, all of them recognizing that Jean-Luc wasn't about to talk about what had occurred between him and his brother. Robert joined them in the dining room just as they were sitting down at the table. He was half a head taller than Jean-Luc, had light blue eyes, and looked just as stoic as his younger brother. Beverly then thought her theory about eye color confirmed, that the gray eyes had to be linked with the gene that made Picards want to head for the stars, while the blue eyes held them to the earth, content to be where they already were. Jean-Luc, Andrew, Rene, Gracie, each had gray eyes and each longed to journey as far as they could go. All the while, Robert had remained on Earth, on the vineyard, tending to the vines. Now it seemed that Allie, though she hadn't known of her parentage and ancestry until a scant few months ago, had that exact same dream. Beverly hoped it would serve to connect the two brothers, once Allie could get through to her uncle.

Robert nodded to each of them as he took his seat. "Welcome," he said. At least, welcome was the word that passed his lips, but the others didn't see it appear in his eyes. They were distant, as if purposely disengaging himself from all of them. Something about their visit bothered him, angered him greatly, but he seemed to have decided that he wasn't going to speak to them about it. Instead, he was going to hold it in and try and hide it, like any good Picard.

The children chatted through dinner while the adults remained fairly quiet with one another. There would be words later, but not tonight, it was too late to start any real discussions, especially those that would quickly escalate to an argument. But one was coming between the brothers, they could all see it brewing, as dangerous and tempestuous as any summer storm.

"You've come right at the height of the harvest," Robert said, standing up. "As it is, I will be rising very early tomorrow morning, so I'll be going off to bed now." He inclined his head to his wife. "Thank you for a wonderful dinner, my love."

Gracie stood up as well. "Uncle Robert, can I help with the harvest?"

The tall, enigmatic man had already started walking to the staircase. He turned slowly, his brow deeply furrowed, his blue eyes showing disbelief as he regarded his young niece. On her part, the little girl didn't shy away at all, just looked straight back at him. "If you'd like to help, you may help," Robert finally said. "But you'll need to be up by four o'clock in the morning."

She beamed at her uncle. "I'll be up and ready," she said.

"We'll see about that when morning comes," Robert said, then nodded to them all "Good night." Then he was up the stairs and gone.

Gracie turned to her father. "So what's harvest like, Papa?" she asked.

"Why don't I tell you about it as we clean up the dishes and the kitchen for your aunt?" Jean-Luc said to her. "And you two get to help as well." His last command was directed towards the elder two. "And you, too," he said to Rene. "Let's go."

With only a few mutterings of complaint, the troops followed him into the kitchen, clearing the table as they went.

"I guess we know when we're not wanted," Marie said. "Would you like to go sit outside on the porch?"

Beverly smiled. "Is this a trick to get me to sit down longer?"

"Yes and no. It really is lovely outside this time of year. I would have suggested it even if I didn't think you need to be off your feet."

The doctor couldn't argue with her sister-in-law's sincerity and followed the slightly shorter woman to the porch, taking a seat in one of the amazingly comfortable chairs they had there. "Oh, this is heavenly," she said. The breeze that rustled past them was pleasantly warm, the summer still had a good hold on the season, despite it being October. Beverly had experienced a time like this when she was very small and lived with her parents in North America. They'd called it Indian summer. She'd loved it then, and certainly loved it now, and if a heaven existed, this could certainly be it.

They sat in silence for awhile, the sounds of the country at night floating to their ears. "Your children are wonderful," Marie said. "Very charming, each of them. I've never seen Robert acquiesce to a request so quickly. But your little one got right to him."

"Allie wants to speak with him, as well," Beverly said. "About the vineyard, I think. Perhaps other things."

"She looks a lot like Robert and Jean-Luc's mother, you know."

The doctor looked over at the other woman. "Does she?"

Marie nodded. "I'm sure Jean-Luc must have noticed. But perhaps not, because Allie resembles Yvette as she was as a young lady. Maybe Jean-Luc doesn't remember how his mother looked when she was young. I'll have to show you a photograph. But Allie's resemblance might help her get to Robert. He seems absolutely determined not to connect with any of you, as if you're all an extension of Jean-Luc."

"I suppose in some way that we are," Beverly said. "But, Robert has been perfectly polite so far."

"Yes, he has. He's got impeccable manners, his mother raised her sons well." She shifted in her seat, craning her neck to see the stars coming out. "I think it still bothers him that Rene hasn't dropped his idea of going into Starfleet. But when I met Jean-Luc, and saw his eyes, that they were like Rene's, I knew that Rene wasn't going to change his mind. Then seeing your Allie, and her eyes, I knew right then that she was like Robert, like Maurice." She looked away from the stars and to Beverly. "It's the eyes, they're the key to all of them. Though...I do think it would be different if we'd had more."

"Why didn't you?" Beverly asked, careful to keep her voice gentle.

"When we had Rene, our firstborn being a son, Robert said he didn't want his son growing up the way he had, always in contention with his younger brother. He didn't want to risk having another boy, and he's such a traditionalist, he wouldn't even fathom the idea of using any artificial means of fertilization to have a girl or two." She sighed. "Perhaps that's another thing upsetting him. He sees his younger brother with two daughters and finds himself jealous." Marie paused, then smiled at her, eyes twinkling. "I have to admit, I'm a bit jealous of you two myself."

Beverly ignored the footsteps treading towards them on the porch. "Whatever for?" she asked.

"Oh, I've always wanted a daughter, that's all."

"If it's a daughter you want, you're welcome to have one of my sisters," Andrew said, drawing up behind them. It had been his footsteps Beverly had heard.

Then they heard a soft smack and a short yelp come from Andrew.

Allie had come up behind him and smacked him on the back of the head to let him know exactly how she felt about him trying to give her or their younger sister away. "How would _you_ feel if I tried to give you away?" she asked, her blue eyes flaring indignance.

He looked directly at his twin. "Grateful."

Allie punched him solidly in the arm. "Andrew Picard!"

"What, you want me to lie?" he asked, rubbing his sore arm, then realizing exactly what he'd said and taking a precautionary step backward as his sister took a predatory step forward.

Beverly gave her sister-in-law a plaintive look. "Would you like to have these two?"

The scuffle behind her stopped as they both stared at her, eyes equally shocked.

The doctor turned around to face them. "Did you have a purpose to coming out here?"

"We're going to bed, so we came to say good night," Andrew said, still rubbing his arm. "Gracie fell asleep at the table when she sat down to take a break. Her asking Dad about the harvest got him all excited at the prospect of participating in it again that we're _all_ going to be getting up early and helping out tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that."

"I think it'll be good for you," Beverly said.

"He said you're helping too."

She raised an eyebrow. "Did he?"

"I did no such thing," Jean-Luc said, joining them on the porch. "I only mentioned that you would be welcome to help in any way that you would like, but have no such obligations to help as they do. All four of them are young and strong and could be a great deal of help."

"Are you saying I'm too old?" Beverly wanted to stand up to give him a good what for, but found that she couldn't get out of her chair, not without some assistance. It seemed that only within the past few days had her bulk gotten to this state.

"Of course not," he replied. "You're too..." he trailed off, noticing her struggle to get to her feet. So he strode over and offered her a hand, which she took. "Pregnant," he finished, smiling at her as she came face to face with him.

"I'm not a invalid." She was doing her bet to wipe that smile off his face with her glare.

"I threatened him," said Marie. "Earlier. Told him that you weren't to be doing anything you didn't want to do, and if you wanted to do something too strenuous, to send you to me."

"It's a conspiracy," Beverly said, facing Marie.

"Well, if you're going to participate tomorrow, I advise you to get yourself to bed," the other woman said, still smiling. "I'm headed there now." She started herding Andrew and Allie as she made her way back inside. "You two, you're going to bed now as well. Move it."

"You're ordering us around too?" Andrew asked.

"And you'd better listen," Beverly answered. They followed their aunt inside after bidding their parents good night.

Jean-Luc wrapped his arms around her, at least as far as they could go, resting them fully on her abdomen. His chin sat on her shoulder and he kissed her ear. "I missed it here," he said. "There's something freeing about this place, in ways I hadn't known as a child. The air moving across your skin, the scent of grapes and earth on the wind, just...it feels..."

"Like home," she finished for him.

"Yes."

She heard the smile in his voice and knew he'd managed to forget about the conflict with his brother, at least for the moment. Beverly decided she wouldn't bring it up, she wanted him to have this peace, this contentment he'd found just now. It was something she wished would never end, seeing him so calm, finally not tossed within the tempest that was life serving Starfleet. Slowly, she'd seen the tension that came from being always the captain in command drain out of him, replaced by this already refreshed man who held her now.

_We could stay here_, she thought. _We could make our leave permanent and stay here on the vineyard, raise the children here, live entirely away from all the galactic troubles we find in space._

She shivered as she felt Jean-Luc move her hair back to reveal her neck and began to place soft kisses there. _Oh, we could most definitely stay here._


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Jean-Luc Picard couldn't remember the last time he'd been up before his brother in any pre-dawn before a harvest day. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever beaten his brother to being up and out of bed first this time of year. When they were boys, it was Robert who got the thrill of excitement that came from harvesting the grapes from the vines, seeing the first signs of what sort of wine they would put the following year. Jean-Luc, as a boy, hadn't been moved by that sort of thing. He had felt a connection to it, and would later admit that while he didn't feel as strongly about it as his brother and father, he was eager to see the crop his family's vineyard would have.

The light that peeked in through the window was weak, the bare fringes of twilight before the warm harvest sun lit up the land. Jean-Luc felt the eagerness that his father and brother had felt long ago, and his brother, he was sure, still felt now. Out there, there was something to be done, something to be accomplished, something to be made. And he wanted to be a part of it. Telling Gracie about the harvest last night, and ultimately telling Andrew and Allie the same, he'd felt the first twinges of it. He wanted to share this tradition with them. There were three weeks yet to go in the harvest, much work to be done, and their participation would be invaluable. Certainly, they wouldn't be put to work all day unless they chose to stay, but putting in a few hours would do them good. Even if they didn't appreciate it now, while they were so young, they would come to appreciate it when they were older, as he did now.

Beside him, Beverly shifted in her sleep, snuggling deeper into her pillow. She had told him last night that she wanted to see this harvest this morning with everyone else. She also wanted to help out, but not to the extent that the rest of them would. Jean-Luc was happy to have her involved in any way she could be, but right now, was apprehensive about waking her up. He studied her as she slept, tracing the fine lines of her face and body, such a strong yet delicate bone structure. Her hair splayed out across the pillow, fiery where the dawn was beginning to softly touch it. Below, he saw the prominently flared curve of her abdomen, where something they had created lay, and continued to grow.

He was also excited to see their son born, to watch him grow outside the womb, become a little person with his own personality, his own wit, his own temper. Seeing how their older children were now, how strong each of them were, he was so eager to see his newest son grow like they had. Unlike the other three, he would see this one from the very moment he started out on his journey. For Beverly, it would be much the same. While she had seen each of them just after they were born, they had been given up to her grandmother soon after. Her oldest son, Wesley, he was the only one she'd cared for from infancy into adulthood. As it were, she was as eager as he. Each day he was reminded that this astonishing woman loved him enough to carry his child.

The urge to touch her, and their son, pulse through him, but he dispelled it. Touching her, especially touching her there, would wake their son, and ultimately wake her. And he was still loathe to wake her up this early.

She could be, particularly as of late, an ogre when awakened before she awoke on her own. It would usually be at least an hour or so after she woke up before she would be bearable to the others. The captain decided to wake her up last.

Carefully, he slid from under the covers and into the chilly dawn air. He quickly went through his morning ablutions, dressed, and stole out of the room. Allie and Gracie were sharing one of the guest bedrooms, while he and Beverly shared another. The old house had seven bedrooms, built for when Picards tended to have larger families, so Gracie could have had her own room, but she had declined, instead asking her sister if it would be okay to bunk with her. Allie hadn't objected, she'd reached the maturity to not resent the attachments younger siblings often had with their elder siblings. She had also mentioned that like Andrew, Gracie knew that Allie would be going away to school soon, and wanted to spend a bit more time with her. So she didn't mind. Andrew had gotten his own room, next to Rene's at the end of the hallway. That still left two open rooms, one of which Marie had already prepared as a nursery, pulling out a bassinet and a crib from the attic, decorating it. She had told Jean-Luc she was absolutely thrilled to have the baby born here, and in some way, she knew that Robert was as well, even though he didn't speak about it.

Picard knew as well, he _did_ know his brother, for the most part. There were things about him that ran deep, the same as it did through their father, through himself. Seeing their family continue was one of them. So even if Robert closed himself off, wouldn't connect to any of them, Jean-Luc recognized that some part of his brother, however small, was happy they were there. Apparently, that little small part would remain hidden for the time being. When he'd approached his brother the evening before, Robert had been short and gruff, even for him. Told him to make himself at home, make himself useful if he could, and then to go away so that he could finish his last bin of grapes.

It irritated the captain, that his brother would rebuff his own nieces and nephew. They deserved better than that. No matter how much he and Robert might be at odds, that conflict shouldn't extend to their children. At least Marie was her welcoming, ebullient self. She was truly a blessing for the family. Robert had married well. Of course, Marie said the same of Beverly, that she was perfect for him and the family, that marrying her had done him a world of good.

With one last look at his sleeping wife, he left the room and quietly shut the door behind him. He went to the girls' room first, they would be easy to awaken, and would most likely be pleasant. Like him, they were morning people. Only Andrew had inherited Beverly's unhappy relationship with the dawn. His youngest slept in the twin bed closer to the door. He'd only barely touched the top of her head when her bright gray eyes opened. "Is it morning, Papa?" she asked.

Even still, though it had been months since she'd started, hearing her call him papa sent warmth throughout his body. "Yes. You should get up now."

She flashed him one of the grins that made it so hard for him to refuse any request she made of him, then flounced out of her bed and out to one of the bathrooms. The little girl was filled with such enthusiasm for life that she tended to influence those around her to feel that enthusiasm themselves. That enthusiasm had changed in Q's future, become something more feisty and outraged at the turns life had taken, so here he was happy to see that it wasn't going anywhere.

He walked over and woke up Allie in the same manner as her sister, a brief touch on the head was all it took to awaken her. The eyes that greeted him were the azure of her mother's, yet he wondered if she'd also gotten some of that color from his side, from his father and brother. Then again, he made another mental note to find a photograph of his mother when she was young, before she had married Maurice. He could see echoes of his mother in Allie and wanted to confirm his vague memory. The words he'd heard her speak the day before, of wanting to go into the family trade, had immediately brightened his mood after the short, cold confrontation with his brother.

She smiled at him. "Good morning."

"Good morning. Your sister is already in the bathroom." He smiled back, then left the room to go wake up his son, a task he dreaded only slightly less than waking up his son's mother.

When he stepped out of the girls' bedroom, he saw that Robert had now gotten up as well. For a moment, the brothers studied one another from opposite ends of the hallway. Jean-Luc desperately didn't want to argue this morning, not now, not with the harvest, not over this, not with his own little family joining in with his brother's family for what should be a family event for all of them.

Robert raised an eyebrow, and nodded to his younger brother. Then he went downstairs, keeping his quiet.

The captain understood, as his brother had just understood him. This, the harvest, wouldn't come into question. It would be, as it were, their neutral zone. It ran through them both, the sanctity of the harvest, and both of them hoped to have that feeling instilled in their children. Neither wished to break that tradition, no matter how upset they might be at their own brother. It had been that way when they were children, as well. During the harvest, in the mornings and outside during the day, they didn't argue. Their father also didn't pick any fights with his younger son. If there was any conflict, it was only the easygoing good-natured teasing that happened within families. Yvette, their mother, had lived for that season. The time made her content to see her family as it should have been, without major emotional struggles going on between all of them, a time of peace.

But it always came to an end. When the vines were bare, the wine made and sealed up in barrels, when winter finally came calling and drove away the summer, they all fell into their old roles. With the winter, peace was always quickly forgotten. Once, his mother had confided in him when he'd come home during a break from the Academy. He had purposely timed his break to happen during the harvest. He and his mother had been walking back from the vines, his arm around her shoulders, content to be with her, this woman who understood him, loved him, and encouraged him to be what he was meant to be.

"Every year, I never want this time to end," she'd said.

They'd continued to walk while he remained silent, unsure of what to say.

"But it has to end, it can't stay summer forever. So I keep a bit of it with me, tucked away in my soul so that I can get through the winter, through the rest of the year's tumult unscathed. This time is the eye of the storm, Jean-Luc. You must cherish it. It must, and will, always end, no matter how hard we wish for it to continue indefinitely. You must learn to carry it with you, so that it will sustain you through the storms that always come with the rest of the year."

He'd paused in his measured strides, looking at her. Her gray eyes had focused somewhere on the horizon, far away from where they stood. Most likely, far away from where and when they existed. "That's very introspective, Maman," he'd said after a moment. "What brought it on?"

Eyes returning to him, and to the present, she smiled. "Oh, just an old woman's prattling. Seeing my sons and my husband get along with one another for a brief moment in each of their lives does this to me."

"But you've never said anything like you just did."

She'd taken his hand in hers, given it a strong squeeze. "I won't be around forever, Jean-Luc. So I say what comes to mind when you're around to hear it. Perhaps one day, you'll even be able to put my words to use."

The following year, she had died in the dark of the winter that came after the harvest. She was buried in the family plot, just beyond the vines. The three Picards left all bid her farewell together, and that same day, as they said good-bye to the most important woman in their lives thus far, they didn't fight. Jean-Luc remembered his mother's words, and recognized that this was her doing, this bit of summer peace in the cold, biting wind of February. And he was grateful for it, they all had been.

The captain continued his walk down the hallway, coming to a stop outside his son's room. Trepidation returned. While he had settled comfortably into the role of father with Allie and Gracie, with Andrew, it didn't come as easily. Something stopped them both from accepting the roles completely, but the captain couldn't identify what it was, and he was sure Andrew was just as stymied. It was something he wanted to ask his elder brother, about how to be a good father to a son. Despite Robert's feelings on Rene's dream of joining Starfleet, the man had managed to not repeat what their father had done with Jean-Luc. He was able to express his displeasure to Rene, but did not alienate him or impede him in any way. The boy knew his father loved him and was connected to him, even though they were vastly different. But with Robert's renewed coldness towards his younger brother, Jean-Luc wouldn't be able to ask anytime soon.

Trepidation also had taken hold because of his son's particularly dismal view of mornings. The captain opened the door. "Andrew," he said.

No movement from his son's sleeping form.

"Andrew."

Again, no movement or acknowledgment.

Picard finally resorted to using his command voice. "Andrew."

"I'm awake," the boy said, his voice muffled by his pillow. "No need to shout."

"You need to get up, we've all got to eat and then head out to the vineyard. You've got a lot to learn and a lot to do." He leaned against the doorframe.

"Why can't this be done at a reasonable hour? The grapes aren't going anywhere." The boy still hadn't moved.

"Exactly. We've got to be the ones to get them moving."

"It's too early for logic."

"Get up."

Andrew finally turned and opened his eyes, squinting against the strengthening dawn light now looking fully into the windows. His hair stuck up in all different directions and the cloudiness of confusion in his eyes told the captain that the boy wasn't entirely awake yet. Continued verbal sparring just wouldn't be fair, but he had to get the young man out of bed and ready. The solution came in the form of little feet running down the hallway, followed by the sound of a large dog's paws clicking against the wood floor. Gracie came to a stop next to her father. "Get up," she told her brother.

"I don't have to listen to you," Andrew said, his eyes beginning to clear as he glared at his younger sister.

Gracie stepped aside to let the dog into the room. "Get him," she said. "Wake him up."

Conal ambled inside, poked his head towards Andrew's, licked the boy once, then turned and left the room. "_That_ is a good dog," Andrew said, and followed his statement by rolling over onto his stomach.

His sister wouldn't have it, got a running start, and pounced onto his back. "I'll make you get out of bed," she said.

Knowing that the little girl would be successful, Picard left the room and returned to his own. There was one more person he had to awaken. When he opened the door, he saw that she'd buried herself further into the covers, blocking the light from falling across her closed eyes. He made a strategic decision to use the most effective means he had to wake her up, a means that also lead to her not being quite as grumpy, or at least not physically violent. Gently, he brushed the hair from the side of her head, and kissed her lightly behind the ear.

"Jean-Luc, go _away_." Yes, she was clearly irritated about being awakened, but her hands and arms, deadly weapons in the morning hours, remained safely tucked underneath the pillow.

He found himself chuckling into her hair. "You told me to wake you up last night. You said you wanted to participate this morning."

Her arm snaked from under the pillow and blindly swatted at his head. "I lied. Now go away."

Sighing, he moved his hand under the covers, seeking out her belly, caressing her as he'd wanted to earlier. He was rewarded with a solid kick from their son.

"Stop that. You know he's going to start connecting with my bladder soon."

"I was counting on it." As if he'd understood his father, the boy kicked again.

Beverly sat up, flung the covers away, and fixed a good glare on her husband. "I hate you, Jean-Luc Picard," she said, and stalked into the bathroom attached to their bedroom.

Two sets of giggles sounded from the direction of the doorway. Allie and Gracie stood there, having heard their mother's comment as they passed by on their trip to the staircase. "I think you're in trouble with Mom," Gracie told him.

"Yes he is," Beverly said from behind the closed bathroom door. "And he'd better not be out there when I come out of this room."

Taking the hint, and trying to keep from laughing aloud, the captain motioned to the two girls and they followed him downstairs and into the kitchen. The delicious smell of breakfast wafted through the morning air. Marie stood again at the stove, finishing up her cooking. Picard wondered if his brother ever took on any of the cookies duties.

As if she'd heard his unspoken question, Marie answered. "I don't dare let your brother cook anything," she said, a smile on her face. "I enjoy it too much, and I'm afraid to let him use my kitchen. Your brother is good at many things, but the culinary arts isn't one of them."

"Where's Uncle Robert now?" Allie asked, sitting down with her plate of food.

"He went out to the winery to get all the equipment ready for today," Marie said. She winked at them. "He won't say it, but I think he's excited."

Gracie beamed and sat down next to her sister. The captain followed suit, filling a plate with food on the way. His stomach had already started growling.

Marie frowned. "Where are Andrew and Beverly?"

"Oh, they'll be down shortly," the captain said in between bites.

"Papa's in trouble," Gracie said as her aunt took a seat across from her.

Marie raised an eyebrow. "Whatever for?"

The doctor strode through the entrance to the kitchen, now fully dressed, entirely awake, and still quite grumpy. "For waking me up, that's what."

Picard put his fork down. "Beverly, you _told_ me to wake you up."

Beverly found a seat next to her youngest, kissing the top of her head before addressing her husband. "I don't recall telling you to wake me up in the creative manner that you chose."

"You also didn't say not to." The captain was beginning to wonder why he kept on with this discussion, it was only going to serve to get him deeper into trouble. Beverly Picard could hold a good, long grudge any day, but when that grudge started in the morning, you would have to begin to look to eternity for it to be brought to a merciful end.

Marie turned to the doctor. "What did he do?"

Beverly delicately set her fork onto her plate. "This wonderful man decided that the most effective means of waking me up and getting me out of the bed would be to wake up the baby and have him kick my bladder, which then forced me out of bed." She looked at Jean-Luc, blue eyes hard.

His sister-in-law did the same. "Jean-Luc, that's an awful thing to do."

"I don't see how it would warrant the anger it seems to be getting." Picard couldn't fathom why this annoyed _both_ women.

"Just apologize, will you?" Andrew said, shuffling into the kitchen. "There's no point in arguing, you won't win. You're speaking with two women who have both had children. You yourself will never actually bear a child. If they say that having an unborn child kick their bladder is irritating, you believe them, apologize, and then be quiet." He yawned, then sat next to his twin sister.

"That was rather insightful for you," Allie said to him. "Especially in the morning."

"I just wanted everyone to stop _talking_," Andrew replied.

Finished with his breakfast, the captain stood up to bring his empty plate to the sink. On his way, he stopped next to Beverly, causing her to look up at him. He'd planned that, so he took the chance to kiss her, then apologize. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't know."

To his pleasant surprise, she stood up and kissed him fully. "You're forgiven," she said, after she broke off the kiss. "Just see that it doesn't happen again."

"It's nearly five," Marie announced. "We need to get going outside. The sun's coming up."

They finished cleaning up and walked outside. The air was damp and a mist rose from the evaporating dew. The sun had finally risen above the horizon and cast the entire vineyard in a warm, golden glow. Each of them were amazed at the sight around them, an entirely different amazement than they had when they looked at the stars. Jean-Luc felt content. _This is home_.

"This is beautiful," Allie whispered beside him. "Though I don't think that's an adequate word to describe it."

The captain smiled, put his arm across her shoulders and drew her close. "I understand," he said.

"I don't see how you could have left in the first place," she said, shaking her head.

"The stars were more beautiful to me. I grew up with this, I knew this, it was so familiar that I forgot how beautiful it is. So I left."

"And now?"

"It's good to be home," he said.

Ahead of them, the workers Robert had hired were already dispersing, heading out to the vines for their assigned tasks. As their group arrived, Robert started to explain the harvesting process to the uninitiated. In front of him, he had a stack of buckets and a separate stack of the knives used to cut the bunches from the vines. "It's simple this year," he said. "The quality of the grapes is very good, so we've no sorting to do while we're out among the vines." He held up one of the knives. "This is called a _sécateur. _A good one of these is priceless in helping you with making the cutting easy. They're very sharp, so be very careful. You'll each have a bucket, and there will be people coming around on carts with crates to dump the grapes into the crates. From there, the grapes are taken to the crusher—" he pointed to the building behind him "—which leads to the tank that collects the juice. If you've got a full bucket and no one has come around yet to empty it, just shout '_seau_' and someone will come around as soon as they can."

He looked at the four children very seriously. "A couple things you need to remember. One, be sure you don't miss any of the grapes. Two, don't be snacking on any of the grapes either. They're our raw material here, and they're rare. If you're hungry, just run back to the kitchen and get something. We'll also be having a big lunch at mid-day, so if I see any juice around your mouths, you haven't got a good excuse." Robert said his last bit with a twinkle in his eyes. More than once, he'd eaten grapes during the harvest as a youth. It just became irresistible, especially during a good year.

"Now," Robert continued. "I want each experienced person to work with an inexperienced person." He looked at each of them, making his decisions. "Jean-Luc can work with Allie. Marie, if you would work with Beverly. Rene, you can stay with Andrew." Then the tall man's eyes fell on Gracie, the only one left. "I see that you made it this morning," he said to her.

"I did," she replied. "I said I would."

Robert nodded. "That you did. However, I don't want you handling a _sécateur. _They really are sharp and I don't want you hurting yourself." He frowned. "And you're too small to pick up and carry a full bucket."

They could all see Gracie's temper getting itself completely worked up. Robert had managed to hit the little girl's sore spots about height and strength. She was always trying to keep up with her two elder siblings, and being reminded that she was that much smaller than them, and even her cousin Rene, didn't help at all in keeping her calm. Her small mouth had set to a frown and her fists balled up.

Robert knelt down to her level. "However," he said, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I have to keep things running today and I could use someone to help me. I think you'd be wonderful at it, and you could certainly learn a lot. What do you say?"

The impending explosion of Gracie's temper dissolved and instead of yelling at her uncle, she beamed. "I'd love to!" she said, then threw her arms around his neck in a hug. Robert looked shocked at first, and a bit uncomfortable, but he eventually gave in and returned the hug.

The captain glanced over at Beverly and Marie. Both of them were holding in laughter and smiling warmly at Robert and his being so easily taken in by the little girl. They'd all known it was coming, though, everyone except Robert. Even Rene had recognized it the day before. There was yet a person alive that couldn't be charmed by little Gracie Picard. She happily climbed onto the motorized cart beside her uncle and waved the rest of her family good bye. Andrew and Rene, both of them looking equally dubious about their tasks, grabbed up buckets and knives and started towards the vines. Conal trotted behind them for a little while, then turned and went over to Beverly.

Andrew stopped walking and turned to look back at his dog. Conal barked once, wagging his long tail, but kept his place beside his master's mother. With a shrug, Andrew turned back around and followed his cousin into the vineyard.

Marie inclined her head towards the dog at Beverly's side. "He knows you're with child," she said. "And he's decided he has to protect you."

Beverly frowned, first at her sister-in-law, then down at the wolfhound. "He's as bad as the rest of the men in my life. Deciding that I'm weak and I need protection just because I'm carrying a child."

Catching her eye, Jean-Luc said, "Or maybe he's actually just protecting everyone else from _you_."

The doctor's eyebrows raced towards the crown of her head, her eyes registering deep shock at the audacity of Picard's statement. Of course, he'd only had the courage to make the comment when she was standing ten feet away from him and had yet to pick up the sharp _sécateur. _Laughing, Allie picked up two buckets and two knives and led him away from her mother before Beverly realized how close she was to some very sharp objects and decided to use them on Jean-Luc.

"I can't believe you said that," Allie said as they got to the first unharvested row of grapevines.

"Neither can I," he replied, cutting off a bunch of grapes and tossing them into the bucket. Once the grapes were off the vine, they didn't have much to worry about breaking any of the fruit, as it would all be going into the crusher to be broken anyway.

The morning went on and they shared conversation as they continued to cut away the bunches. Allie had taken to it as if she'd been doing it her whole life and hadn't needed any further instruction beyond the first time he'd showed her the technique. By mid-morning, Marie and Beverly had gone back to the house. Jean-Luc wondered at who's insistence it had been that they head back. He was willing to put money on it being Marie's idea. Gracie shouted and waved whenever she and Robert happened by, she'd yet to stop smiling.

The captain noticed that Allie was looking down to the end of the row, her hands worked independently, she barely needed to look to see what she was doing. He followed her gaze and saw she was looking at her brother and cousin. "I hadn't noticed how red his hair had gotten," she said. "It really is a rusty color now."

"Hasn't it always been?"

She shook her head. "It always depended on the season. In the winter, it would be rusty, but in the summer, it would get a lot lighter. I mean, a _lot_. Sometimes, you wouldn't even know he was a redhead, because it would be nearly blond. People used to insist that there wasn't any way we could be related, much less be twins. But we've been on the _Enterprise_ for months and months, so he hasn't been exposed to any type of sun for any significant amount of time to mess with his hair color." She smiled. "He looks a lot more like he could be mom's son when his hair is this color."

The captain frowned. "He already looks like he's your mother's son."

"Yes, but only a bit when his hair is light. Otherwise, he looks and sounds an awful lot like you." She shrugged. "It just makes me feel better to see both of you so obviously in him than only you." Allie tossed yet another bunch into the bucket.

His frown grew deeper and he paused in his harvesting. "What makes you say that?"

She looked away from her brother and over at him. "Mom's much more open than you are, you know that." Allie reached out with her free hand and rested it on his shoulder. "Don't take this the wrong way, okay? But I don't want him growing up to be like you."

He must have looked rather horrified and hurt, because she immediately started to clarify what she'd said to him.

"Papa, only in that 'I will not allow anyone to know how I really feel about anything, I will just hold it in so they don't have to help me out at all' kind of way. I've known since we were small that Andrew was going to end up a Starfleet officer, that he'd end up being a damn fine captain. I _do_ wish that for him, he's made for it. And you've set a great example for him. You're fair, honorable, exemplary. But only very few people know exactly how loving and gentle you can be, how you've got just as sharp a sense of humor as Mom." Her eyes glanced back at Andrew and Rene at the end of the row, then back to her father. "I don't want him to hide like you do. You're coming out of it, but it's so ingrained in you that it's taking awhile. I don't want it to become like that for him, such a part of him that _not_ hiding becomes extremely hard."

The hurt drifted away, he understood what she was saying. "So in that way, you want him to be more like your mother."

Allie smiled. "Exactly. So when I see his hair so red, I think that maybe, there's a better chance of it." She nudged him. "I mean, you're coming along nicely in relaxing and opening up, but it's just so much easier when you start on 'em young, you know?"

Picard laughed. "Yes, you're right." He resumed cutting the bunches of grapes from the vines. "I am trying, you know."

"I know."

They all gathered back together at noontime to eat outdoors, the long picnic tables laden with ample food to fuel everyone working among the vines. Then the meal was over and they were all back to work. The day passed in a familiar rhythm, working until the sun began to set and the harvest was over for the day. Picard's thoughts remained on Allie's profound words from that morning. He recognized that he had to chance, and that he'd started the process, but like she'd said, it was very hard to do. It felt good to work next to her, have her tell him exactly how much she liked the entire process of the harvest, how much she would like to continue working on the vineyard. He sighed. She needed to be working with Robert more closely, so that she could learn everything about being a vintner.

They were walking back to the house and she'd heard his sigh. "What was that for?"

"Nothing," he said. Realizing what he'd done, he gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Okay, it was something. But I'm not ready to talk about it yet. I will be, but not yet."

Allie nodded. "Fair enough." Then she kissed him on the cheek and went into the house.

Jean-Luc stayed outside, just at the edge of the vines, waiting for his brother. Robert had dropped off Gracie at the house half an hour before, the rest of the workers had gone home, Andrew and Rene had long since grown bored with the entire operation and found something else to do as soon as Robert had deemed to let them go for the day. The captain knew he couldn't keep ignoring this thing that had cropped up between him and his brother, whatever it was. Especially not when Allie was taking such an interest in the entire trade. She needed to study it with Robert, not him. Robert knew so much more about it than he did. Already, he knew that Andrew wasn't going to be staying, the boy reminded him much too much of himself at that age. Gracie was too young to know yet what she would want to do, Rene had his eyes on the stars like his cousin. It would be Allie, at least for the present, who would choose to carry on the family's tradition.

Heavy footsteps behind him and then coming to a stop beside him told him that his brother had arrived. Both of them stood at the edge of the fields, looking back towards the family home. Lights had started flickering on within the house as the sun continued to set and the sky grew dark. "I'd like for Allie to work with you from now on," Jean-Luc said, keeping his tone even.

"Why the request?" Robert's voice was just as even as his younger brother's.

"She told me today that she's very interested in the trade."

The taller man grunted and crossed his arms. "Is that so."

"Robert, she's a Picard interested in wine-making. I don't think it's a very weighty request to grant that she learn it from you."

"But is she really a Picard, Jean-Luc? After all, she wasn't born here."

The captain turned on his brother. "That isn't what makes a Picard, being born on this particular bit of ground."

Robert turned as well, equally as confrontational. The harvest peace was gone for the day. "Then why did you bother coming back to have your son be born here?"

And Jean-Luc didn't have an answer. At least, he didn't have one he was willing to admit to his brother, that if he'd known about his other children before they had been born, he would've tried his damnedest to have them born here. Exploring space was one thing, but this was home, and it felt right to have them here. He'd even consciously decided he wanted to bring the others here, before he even knew about this new unborn child, to show them their ancestry, to show them where they came from.

So he broke eye contact and looked away from his brother. It was an answer, though not nearly a full one. Now he was beginning to understand why Robert was acting as he was. That in some way, his brother didn't think that his nieces and nephews were really Picards, that they didn't deserve to be here. But that didn't make sense at all, not after he'd watched Robert all day with Gracie, completely open and teaching her whatever he could. Frustrated, Jean-Luc set off toward the house, he didn't want to speak to his brother anymore that night and cause more tangles and thorns to be tossed between them.

"Jean-Luc."

The captain turned around to face his brother again. "What?"

"I would be happy to work with Allie."

Then Robert turned and headed towards the winery, his younger brother watching him, wondering what the hell went on in that head of his.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Robert Picard stood at the end of one of his rows of vines, watching as the first light of dawn crept into the gray sky. The chill of night clung onto the leaves, the fruit, and the tall vintner standing among his crops. Again, as he looked at the grapes, the tingle got to him. He couldn't shake it, even though he didn't want to think it, nor was it a good thing to think. But, he couldn't help it.

_This will be a millisieme year. _

He allowed himself a small smile. Those who spoke Standard would call it a vintage year. Whatever language was used, it couldn't be said aloud, not until the properly aged wine was first poured from the oak barrels and the tingling feeling that began during the harvest could be fully realized. To say or do otherwise would be incredibly bad luck. And as with all traditionalists, Robert was a strong believer in superstition. But he hadn't gotten that feeling right at the beginning of the harvest, it hadn't occurred until a few days ago, and instead of fading, it only grew stronger each day. It had started, of course, with the arrival of his brother and his family.

Robert found himself wanting to frown, but it didn't appear on his face. When Marie had told him about his brother and his previously-unknown family, he had been thrilled. For such a long time, the Picards had been a family with many children. It had only been in the later generations that the numbers dwindled down to one or two, and now those reproductive decisions their ancestors had made left only he and Jean-Luc as the last remaining Picards. When he'd had his son Rene, it gave him some hope that the family would continue for at least one more generation.

The family, though. The vineyard had been in question, as Rene seemed to take after his uncle rather than his father—his gray eyes focused almost exclusively on the future and taking in nothing of the past. After witnessing the estrangement of his own father and brother, Robert had decided that even though he strongly disapproved of his son's dreams, he couldn't quash them. It did little, however, to assuage his own negative emotions on the future of the family's vineyard. Until Marie had told him about Jean-Luc's children and Jean-Luc's marriage, he'd been feeling somewhat hopeless at the prospect of the business continuing after his own death. Learning of three new Picards, with another on the way, had given him some hope.

He had to admit, he was shocked to find out that Jean-Luc had gotten married. The man who had visited him three years ago wasn't nearly ready to settle down with a wife, to have a family, to put aside his own career aspirations and give the greatest importance to his loved ones. Yet the man that left Labarre three years ago had been a very different man than the one who had first appeared. His brother, to Robert's great surprise, had grown up.

It had only taken him some fifty years, and then some, to accomplish.

Then Marie had gone and told him the entire story about how the three of them—the twins and the little girl—had come about. Immediately, he'd become angry with his immature brother yet again. Not about with Jean-Luc's becoming involved with Beverly, but his choice in leaving her that night. He shouldn't have left her, he should have stayed with her, should have stayed and faced the responsibility of loving someone. And if he had stayed, then those children would have been able to be raised with their parents for their entire lives, not just the latter half of them. Robert couldn't imagine missing one moment of Rene's life, he couldn't understand how their father had cut Jean-Luc out so easily. It seemed that as soon as Jean-Luc left, Maurice had written him off entirely, as if he'd never existed at all.

At least, he had tried. But Robert knew, and most certainly Maurice knew, exactly how much like his mother Jean-Luc really was. He'd inherited her temperament and, as a result, had been an incredibly sensitive little boy. The man Jean-Luc had become, a man stoic and reserved, seemingly implacable, was only a mask developed from the very beginnings of childhood. Robert had helped in forming that mask, their father had helped especially. He regretted it now, most of it. In the end, it hadn't helped Jean-Luc after what the Borg had done to him, they had still managed to get inside his soul and tear it apart, making him do things that he would never have done, not without dying first.

But the bastards hadn't even given him the option. Even though Robert had been irritated and estranged from his brother for years—only Marie had kept up the communication—he'd immediately felt deep seated, burning anger against that species. Jean-Luc _was _his brother. Nothing would change that. He would still do anything he could to protect him, even if he didn't want the protection. It was the way it was. Family was a strange thing.

Yet the anger at his brother had renewed at finding Jean-Luc immature in yet another way, and he'd expected to find Jean-Luc's children to be equally as disconnected from the family's past and traditions. So far, they had proven him very, very wrong, and he was finding it very, very hard to remain so stoic around them. He wanted to allow himself the luxury of being able to interact freely with all of them, but he wouldn't be able to until...he wasn't even sure when. But each child was very much a Picard in their own rights. When Robert looked at the eldest, Andrew, he saw Jean-Luc as a boy, that same guarded sensitivity, the same look towards the sky at night when he thought no one was looking, the same understated brilliance and command ability.

The littlest one had charmed him straight away, that flashing smile of hers and complete openness. Like her brother, she'd inherited the rust colored hair from their mother, the same hair Robert had wished his son to have inherited from his own mother. Instead, the boy had gotten first the towhead and then chestnut brown hair most male Picards tended to have, and then subsequently lose nearly entirely by the time they reached their thirties. He'd figured that if his son had gotten his mother's hair, he'd have some hope of retaining it. Then there was the boy's twin, Allie, who so much reminded Robert of his mother that it was painful at times. The same way she set about tasks, learned so quickly, took in and breathed the life of the vineyard, and _understood_ everyone around her. Yvette had always done her best to keep the peace between each of the men in her life, having chats with each of them, taking them aside when she found them angry or upset. She had a unique way of making you think about everything around you in an entirely different way. At times, Allie seemed almost as if Yvette had returned in another person, even the cadence of her voice sounded similar. Yet Robert knew very well that his niece was entirely her own person, her sense of independence ran sure and strong.

Much like her mother. Beverly had been good for Jean-Luc, and strangely, he understood exactly why she had chosen to do what she had done. It showed how well she understood Jean-Luc, and could appraise when he was and wasn't ready to be responsible for things other than a starship. It was Jean-Luc's fault for leaving, he should have stayed. If he had, then they could have lived on the vineyard with them if they had chosen to do so, learning about their family's history and trade and perhaps choosing to continue the tradition. At least, it would have been a valid option.

"You're up early."

Robert turned at the sound of his wife's whisper and the touch of her hand to his back. "Yes."

"Thinking again, are you?"

"A bit." He looked back out among the vines. The day would begin in a few minutes. "What do I have for help today?"

"You'll have Allie, you should have your brother." She paused, doing a mental count of bodies available to work that day.

He frowned.

She frowned at his frown. "What?"

He didn't answer.

"You should just talk to him. You can't ignore him forever."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge?"

Ignoring his teasing, she continued on with her serious conversation. "You need to speak with him, Robert. If not for you, then for the children. They shouldn't have to watch their fathers continue to argue."

"We haven't spoken ill of the other aloud," he replied. "How much could they know?" As soon as he asked, he knew the answer. All three of them would know, all three were very perceptive and had most likely known from the moment they met their uncle.

"I hope you don't hold their circumstances against them."

"No." His eyes opened a bit wide, surprised that she would think that of him, rejecting his own family. "Of course not."

"And Beverly?"

"No, I don't."

"So it _is_ Jean-Luc you need to speak to...with...whatever it is you men need to do."

"It wouldn't do any good." At least, he didn't think it would. Bringing emotions out into the open only tended to make things worse. He knew that once he actually spoke about the things he thought, he and his brother would immediately be arguing aloud instead of keeping the stony silence that they had kept instead. "It's better this way."

Marie crossed her arms. "Is it?" She walked away when he didn't answer, heading back for their home to join the others now rising from their sleep.

Robert watched her leave from the corner of his eye, but he didn't turn. Instead, he waited in the vines until the sun was fully above the horizon, then went to meet the workers that had begun to show up. Allie had come with her younger sister in tow, Jean-Luc not far behind. Robert had his younger brother take Gracie and Allie walked with Robert out to where they'd left off the day before. They worked most of the day in silence. He appreciated that about her, she seemed to understand when words of any sort would be unwelcome. He also secretly took pleasure is seeing how well she took to the entire work of making wine. They'd had many discussions already about soil, vines, grapes, the process of fermentation, barreling, aging. Already, she'd shown an aptitude for it, the same one her father had had as a boy and thrown away to live his life as a Starfleet officer.

No. His brother hadn't thrown his talents away, he'd used other ones he possessed instead. Robert hadn't known when he was younger, but he knew now that if the heart wasn't in it, no matter how much talent there may be in a person, that they wouldn't be successful in their endeavor. Unless he chose to become a vintner of his own will, Jean-Luc would be a terrible one. Robert had learned that lesson from his mother, of all people. His brother had just left after the harvest, gone back to his Academy and his Starfleet and his life he'd made away from Labarre. The morning had woken cold, dreary, entirely forgotten were the warm days of the harvest, as if the land had known that all the wine had finally been stored away and they were done with the vines until spring.

Jean-Luc had left a stack of books just next to the door. Robert picked one up and studied it, trying to decide if his brother had done that on purpose. Just as Robert became frustrated with Jean-Luc for throwing away his abilities in the family trade, Jean-Luc often grew frustrated with Robert for not furthering his education beyond his technical degrees for his career on the vineyard. So Jean-Luc left books everywhere, giving hints the same as his elder brother did to him.

Robert dropped the book, ignoring the smacking noise it made as it hit the floor. Then he shrugged on a needed coat and headed outside into the northern wind. Footsteps indicated that someone followed him. He knew it was his mother. "He throws it away, Maman," he said.

Yvette threaded her arms through the crook of her tall son's elbow. "If we were to keep him here on the vineyard, we would hear his heart sigh constantly. This isn't what he wants, Robert. It would be unfair to him to make him stay."

He'd frowned at her, attempting to figure out what she meant by her statement. "What are you talking about?" It was easier just to ask.

She stopped walking and faced him fully. "_Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il désire_," she said.

His frown only grew deeper. _The heart that sighs does not have what it desires._ Her statement made only a bit of sense. "You're saying he would be unhappy. He could get over that. He would grow to love it."

Yvette shook her head slowly. "No. He would come to resent it. Finally, he would come to hate it. Right now, he does appreciate where he comes from. You see that he returns for the harvest when he's able. I know my son well enough to know that he loves his family, his family's history, and its traditions. He also knows that for now, they are not for him, no matter what talent you and your father think he is wasting. He will have to return of his own will, on his own time, once he's met up with his dreams." She lifted the book she had in her hand. "And I will speak to him about his unsubtle hints about what he thinks you should be doing. You are both very intelligent young men and you each think the other is wasting his time and talent. Except both of you know, in your hearts, what you are meant to do. Each of you need to love what's in your brother's heart, not judge what you think you see in the other. If we were to send you away to another school, for more advanced degrees in subjects you're very good at, but don't want to study any longer, how would you react?"

"I would hate it." He could only be honest with his mother.

"As would your brother if we kept him here. Let each other be who you are." She smiled brightly at him, her entire face lighting up. "And who is this young lady you've started to date? It was your _father_ who told me, do you realize how embarrassing that was? To find that your father knew more gossip than I did? Tell me all about her." She took his elbow again and led him on a walk through the vineyard.

"Her name is Marie." The woman in question had been the woman who was now his wife. His mother had died in the winter following the next year's harvest and that was the last time his brother had returned until his visit three years ago. Robert had left Jean-Luc alone, no longer admonishing him over leaving the vineyard. Maurice, however, had not decided to keep the peace, and his castigating the day after Yvette's funeral had led to Jean-Luc's final departure.

And still, he'd said nothing. If he'd spoken to his father, asked his father to leave Jean-Luc alone, his brother may have been around more often. He may have seen his brother marry the following year, may have seen his nephew be born, may have gone to his father's funeral. He might have kept his roots instead of wandering the galaxy. He may have stayed with Beverly that night, not afraid of committing to a family, or at least, at that point in time, committing to loving someone deeply and sharing it in sharing a life. Jean-Luc had missed out on many things in his life and Robert now realized he was to blame, at least in part.

_I should have said something_.

"Pardon?" his niece stopped her cutting and turned a puzzled look over to her uncle. "When should you have said something?"

Robert blinked, knowing the surprise showed in his eyes, and for once, not caring. He'd spoken aloud and hadn't intended to. Or had he? The child beside him—no, the young woman—reminded him very strongly of his mother. Had his mother been there, he would have had the courage to speak to her about his thoughts on Jean-Luc, both past and present. But she had died long ago, and now his niece worked beside him, just as enigmatically open and quiet most of the time, as his mother had been. So understanding of how Picards worked internally, in both heart and mind. Perhaps he'd meant to speak aloud. It was certainly about time he'd done so.

He snatched at another vine and concentrated on his task. "A long time ago."

"Seems to me you could have plenty to say right now, not just a long time ago."

Robert frowned.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you that if you keep making that face, it'll freeze like that forever?"

"As a matter of fact, she did." He turned to look at her, now smiling despite his troubled thoughts at his brother and how insightful his niece was. "As you can see, it did me no good. I've got a perpetual frown."

She returned his smile. "No. You just like to pretend as if you do. More comfortable for you if you muck about acting like you're the most grumpy person alive." Allie leaned closer to him, dropping her tone to a conspiratorial whisper. "But I can see straight past it, you know."

"I can tell." He clipped another bunch of grapes and placed it in the bucket beside his feet. When she didn't return to the clipping herself, he nodded in her direction. "Shouldn't you be working?"

She nodded in his direction in return. "Shouldn't you be talking?"

Robert's clippers halted in mid-movement. "I don't see what about."

"Whatever you should've said a long time ago. I'd like to hear it."

He wasn't sure. On one hand, Allie was entirely reasonable and possessed a remarkable understanding, something far beyond her sixteen years. On the other hand, the issue involved her father and it didn't seem right to put her in the middle, much less speak with her about it as if he might be open to any sort of advice. Then again, she wanted to know, and he had a suspicion that she knew exactly what was bothering him. Or at least _who_ was bothering him.

His clippers still hadn't moved.

"It's about my father, isn't it?"

"Yes." He'd talk, she would keep asking him about it from now on even if he refused. Somehow, she knew that he wouldn't get upset with her if she kept prodding. Like Yvette, she had the ability to sense how far a person could be pushed and never seemed to cross that line.

"I won't tell him, if that's what you're worried about. It isn't my place. That's what you have to do. But I think I'd like to hear it anyway. You and he are a lot alike, even if neither of you would admit it, even under torture." She shrugged. "Knowing you, in some way, also helps me know him. You've known him a lot longer than I have."

"I spent a long time not speaking to him. Longer than you've been alive." He sighed, then chuckled a self deprecating chuckle at the outward expression of his frustration. "_Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il désire_," he muttered under his breath.

"_Il n'y a que les montagnes qui ne se rencontrent jamais_," came Allie's reply. Robert gave her a sharp look, causing her to give him a wide-eyed innocent look. "I'm sorry, I thought we'd switched to speaking in French aphorisms."

There was a glint of humor in her eyes, but Robert knew she'd been serious in what she'd said, she had to be._ There are none so distant that fate cannot bring together_. One didn't have to be told that she was referring to him and his brother. He sighed again. "I should have said something when Jean-Luc left here forty-four years ago."

Allie raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

Robert continued to busy his hands with the vines as he spoke. "We had just buried our mother the day before and for that entire day, none of us argued. Normally, we all argued constantly, and if we weren't arguing, it was a silent hostility. You see, both our father and I thought that your father was wasting his talent in joining Starfleet. He had a way with the vines, a gift not to be taken for granted. Both of us hated seeing him throw it away on some whim."

He noticed Allie begin to object and held up his hand to stave her off. "But by then, my opinion had changed, even though neither my father nor Jean-Luc knew. But my mother had. It had been she who helped me understand him to some extent. That aphorism you heard me say, that's what she said to me. She helped me understand that even though he had a talent for it, what he wanted to do wasn't here on the vineyard." Robert indicated upward with his chin. "It was up there. And if we made him stay, he would resent his home and his history instead of appreciating it. Anyway, Jean-Luc had planned to stay for at least a week, but our father wouldn't have it, not if Jean-Luc was going to go back to 'that damned Academy.' The two of them had the biggest disagreement I'd seen them have, even worse than the one over him going into Starfleet. In the end, Jean-Luc left that night, saying that he wouldn't return again."

Robert paused, studying Allie closely. "And for a long time, he kept that promise."

"Then he came back."

The vintner nodded. "Yes. He came back. At first, I wasn't sure why he came back. Marie had always kept in touch with him, she'd taken a liking to him as soon as she'd met him, before he left for good. She insisted that if I wouldn't speak with him like a brother, then she would treat him as her own brother, and she has. I had known about the Borg incident—everyone on Earth had been on alert. Afterwards, the news correspondents ran stories constantly, it was everywhere. Seeing him return, he was very different from the young man who had left so many years before. He wasn't himself, so much so that he didn't want to live with himself and what he hadn't been able to stop."

"He still blames himself, you know."

"I know. And he will until the day he dies. It will stay with him. He's accepted that now, at least to the degree that he's able, and has been able to continue with his life. But when he returned here, for him, life had ended. He didn't know where he belonged, he wanted to hide from everything, everyone. I made him face up to it and go back to his life, to accept what had happened, that he was human and fallible like anyone else. I suppose I did what I was supposed to do as his elder brother. And that's what I should have done forty-four years ago."

"What would you have said?"

"That I understood him. It wasn't just our father's shouting that drove him away—if it had been only that, he would have left long before he did. It was that our mother had died, the only person in the family he thought had understood who he was. Faced with a father and brother that could only seem to be disappointed in him, this wasn't home for him anymore. My staying silent was as good as shouting that I approved of what our father had said. And once he was gone, it was easier to remain silent than to bring up any of this. But now..." he looked directly at Allie. "There are farther reaching consequences than I had thought."

Allie waited for him to elaborate.

He did, his frustration coming through in the nearly vicious cuts he made on the vines holding the grapes. "I'm his older brother. I'm sure you understand, as you have a younger sister. You want them to have a good life and part of your role as the elder sibling is to help them accomplish that." Robert could feel the tendrils of deep emotion begin to crawl out and he tried to hold them down as best he could. At the same time, he stopped the cutting and looked fully at Allie, allowing himself to make eye contact. "Natalie, I wanted Jean-Luc to be happy. When our mother helped me understand how that would happen for him, I desired for him to have a good life...and for his family, his home to be a part of it. Because I didn't speak up that night, he's missed out on so much. At first it was only things involved here. He wasn't able to attend our father's funeral. He didn't come to my wedding, which I know hurt him, he's good friends with Marie, he's seen her as a sister for a long time. He wasn't able to see Rene after he was born, either. Even though he'd stayed away, I knew family was—and is—important to him."

He let out another sigh. "Marie made sure to keep me updated and I felt helpless as he went on with his life, not marrying, not having children, not even involved with his extended family. And I knew these things would have contributed to him being happy in some way. Starfleet wouldn't be enough. I know my brother. Then I find out that he's missed out on more. He missed out on a marriage that could have happened so much earlier, on seeing his children born and watch them grow up. I abandoned my duty as the older brother, and he abandoned all of you."

"He didn't know."

Robert shook his head. "No, he didn't. But he should have, and would have, if he had stayed. But I think he was afraid, because if his family could reject him as our father did, as he thought I did, then your mother would as well. It all comes down to a fear of commitment. Certainly, he could commit himself to Starfleet, but to anything deeper, where he would but vulnerable to another? That's not a typical Picard thing to do."

Allie considered the statement, not immediately firing back with the easy comment about it more being a Picard male trait, rather then one of both genders. "But you did. You married and had a child. You're still married."

"But I'm not speaking to my brother. You aren't the one who needed to hear this. Both of us need courage. I should've said something."

"You still have time."

"Or time has me, stalking us all, slowly but surely, and then it will catch up to us all." He knew he had to act before he ran out of time. The years ahead of him were lesser in number than the ones behind him now.

They shared a silent break in the conversation, the bunches of grapes hitting the sides of the buckets with thuds being the only sound. "What was he like as a boy?" Allie asked.

"Oh, he was such a good boy." The smile on his face was warm as he described his younger bother as a small child, his dreams, his pranks, his accomplishments. So he made a decision. He would speak with his brother soon, within the next couple days. He owed it to him. To them. "He's where he wanted to be as a boy—a starship captain. That little boy made his dreams come true."

"My brother is very much like him, then. More than I thought." Allie's eyes wandered beyond the vineyard and in the direction of where her brother might be.

Neither he nor Rene had joined in the harvest that day. After a week straight of working in the vineyard, both boys had asked to be let free for a day to do whatever it was that boys did with free time. Robert had agreed to it and Andrew had elected to investigate the fencing salle in the town, Rene joining him. At least, that's what they had planned on for the afternoon, he wasn't sure what they'd done in the morning. Sleep, most likely, as teens, both he and Jean-Luc had been apt to sleep in whenever they were given the chance. "I wish Jean-Luc had been part of his life for a much longer time than he has been."

Allie turned back to her uncle. "It isn't his fault, you know."

"Do you blame your mother, then?"

She shook her head. "No. I blame circumstance. They both didn't want to hurt the other, or impede them. Mom thought my father would be held back by having a family, so she didn't tell him. He left her that night because he didn't want her to feel guilty. Basically, it was guilt that kept everyone apart." Her blue eyes gazed straight into his. "Maybe you should put an end to that completely."

"Mmm." He went back to the cutting.

"I know a noncommittal answer when I hear one," Allie said.

"I'm a Picard, I specialize in noncommittal."

"Now that's a lie."

He stopped and looked at her. She kept doing that to him, stating things that were at once so simple and so true that it stopped him dead in his tracks with its veracity. "Is it?"

"That's the part about you that's so unlike my father. You're willing to commit to anyone you find worthwhile and you do so wholeheartedly. You aren't afraid of it. You stayed here on the vineyard, you married, you had a child."

He sighed. "I never doubted about where I belonged and where I came from, because I had the support of my father."

Allie nodded her agreement. "You did. And so do my brother and my sister, that's how they're different. I mean, there are other things, they _are_ entirely their own people. Andrew didn't decide he wanted to join Starfleet because his father's in it. Up until a few months ago, he didn't even know who his father _was_, much less that he was a Starfleet captain. It just shows me that he's meant for it, whether he believes it or not. Gracie, I'm not sure what she wants to do yet, but she looks at the stars and the night sky the same way that Andrew does. And once we met our father and found out that he was our father, I saw that he looks at the stars the same way."

"What about you? What do you think about them?" Perhaps she was like her father and mother, like this new branch of Picards that tended towards the stars rather than sticking to the ground.

"I think they're nice to look at, but I don't want to be in them."

Or perhaps she wasn't. "What is it that you want to do, then, if you don't want to explore the galaxy?" Allie was someone who knew how other people worked, almost instinctively knew, but was hard to figure out herself.

"I want to stay here." She gazed over the rows of vines, at the waning sun in the sky, hefted the _sécateur, _and went back to cutting. "I have an interview next week at a university in Paris. I can't explain it exactly. I want to be a vet, and I could do that here. But the other thing is that this all feels very right. It feels like home, much more so than Caldos ever did. This—" she motioned to the vines around them "—all feels natural. Like I was meant to be here. I wish I could explain it."

He found himself smiling. His niece stood there saying things he wished his son would say, yet would never say. She was saying the things his father had hoped Jean-Luc would say, and never did. Then he found himself placing a hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to explain. I understand exactly what you mean. This is home...for _all_ of you, not just myself, Marie, and Rene. You are more than welcome to stay here and learn both your veterinary skills and how to be a vintner." He stopped talking for a moment, having caught a bit of doubt in her eyes. "You were afraid I would refuse."

"To be honest, I was. This all felt so comfortable, and with you being so stand-offish, I had some fear that you wouldn't want me to stay because you're upset with my father...and upset with yourself. But this is what I want to do, I'm sure of it, yet I've got no control over what you decide." She almost looked frightened, and for such a strong young lady to look scared, it unnerved him.

"You are family," he said, his tone very serious, wanting to clearly set things right where they should be. "This is the family home. You are always welcome here, no matter how much I might argue with my brother. And you are certainly welcome to join in the family business. God knows, you're the first one in your generation to express any interest in the vineyard at all, I wouldn't dare reject that out of hand. But even if you weren't the first one to want to be a vintner, you would still be just as welcome."

"Thank you," she said, very quiet, and truly relieved.

He shared a warm smile. "You're also making a decision quite the opposite of what Jean-Luc chose at your age. I'm sure you appreciate the irony."

"I certainly do. I think—"

The rest of her reply was interrupted by a shout from the end of the rows of vines. "You're lying!"

The two of them turned towards the source of the shouting and witnessed a small redhead running headlong after her older brother, who was easily keeping away from her with a long loping gait. "They did _not_ say that I was too young to fence there!"

"Yes they did," Andrew shouted back over his shoulder. "Too bad for you."

"Papa, can't you do something?" The captain had walked to the end of his row, abandoned by his daughter so she could try and beat up her brother.

"I'm not getting involved," he said. "I'll be in the house." And he strode down the knoll and away from the tumult like a true diplomat.

"Just wait till I catch up with you! I'll make you stop your lying to me!" Gracie resumed her tirade, dropping the idea of outside help.

"Not unless you've got troops of Klingons backing you up." Andrew came to a sudden stop and Gracie crashed right into him. He caught her before she hit the ground and threw her over his shoulder.

"So you admit you lied?" she asked, fists poised over her brother's back.

"I will if you stop shouting in my ear."

"I wasn't shouting."

"Yelling, then. Whatever you want to call it, just stop doing it."

"Fine." Gracie went limp and said nothing else.

There was a moment of silence between them and they realized whoever was within earshot of them on the vineyard was now looking in their direction. Allie and Robert hadn't moved, they'd already had a first row seat for the event. Rene came bounding over the small hill and halted right when he saw his cousins.

"He always looks shell shocked whenever he sees any of us fight," Allie said.

Robert chuckled. "That's the problem with being an only child. He doesn't quite understand that you can not like someone, but still love them."

Andrew placed Gracie on her feet, then she punched him in the leg and bolted towards the house. Rene quickly stepped aside to let her pass and she ran straight into her aunt. Marie turned the little girl by her shoulder and pointed her in the direction of the house. "March straight back," she said. "And make sure you wash up, you're filthy."

Gracie looked as if she was going to protest, then caught on to Marie's irritation and instead quietly walked back to the house. Marie turned to face Andrew, ignoring the others. "You were supposed to fetch everyone for dinner."

"I was getting to that," he replied, shuffling his feet. "I just had to—"

"Tease your sisters?"

"Only one of them." His reply was immediate and without thought and he took a small step backwards right after he said it.

"Andrew." His name came out slowly, as warning as his aunt crossed her arms.

"I'm going," he said, and headed for the house himself, giving Marie a wide berth. As he walked, he looked back at the gathering group. "Oh, and, supper's ready." The look he got from Marie chased him the rest of the way to the house.

"If you decide you want to kill him, I'll say I saw nothing," Allie said to Marie.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said. "Come on, both of you."

Robert trailed behind as the two women walked ahead of him towards their home. Watching Marie with the other children, he realized he'd made another mistake in his life, and that was to only have one child. Rene had missed out on a very dear type of relationship in his life in having a brother or sister. Robert had wanted to keep Rene from having the sort of rivalry he'd had with his own brother, but had forgotten all the good things that came with that sibling rivalry, including that very close bond. Most of the time, Robert didn't like his own brother, but he did love him.

He sat brooding through dinner, knowing his dour exterior was the same as it had been, so no one could figure out how much his thinking had changed. The harvest always did this, changed things up long enough to get them all thinking a bit more deeply than usual. Maybe it was the peace it brought between them that caused it. Maybe it was something else. Robert watched his brother closely through the evening, as he interacted with each of his children, as he bantered with his wife. Watched the slight smile on his face after he'd tucked his youngest into bed. Robert knew that smile, he'd done the same many times after he'd tucked Rene into bed when he was a little boy.

Soon the older children were off into their own beds, Allie done with her applications, Andrew dropping off in the middle of a book and prodded off the couch by his mother, Rene nearly staggering up the stairs after his attempt to stay up as late as his older cousins. Beverly wasn't far behind, she'd been more tired the last few days than when she first arrived. Jean-Luc went with her to make sure she was okay. Marie ducked into the library, came out with a book in hand, then kissed her husband and headed up the stairs herself.

Still, Robert stayed up, even as the hour grew late and the next morning's harvest grew even closer.

A creak on the steps told him that someone had come back down the stairs.

"I thought you would have been fast asleep by now," Jean-Luc said.

"So did I," said Robert, getting out of the armchair and walking towards the back door. "Would you like to go for a walk?"

Jean-Luc gave him a curious look, nodded, and followed him out the door.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Jean-Luc Picard kept his gaze straight ahead on the dark rows between the vines, slight shafts of moonlight leading the way as he walked beside his brother. He almost felt like a little boy again, following his older brother out into the fields in the dead of night, up to some mischief that usually got them both into trouble with their father. Always, their mother would intervene, insisting that the punishment need not be as draconian as Maurice thought it should, as the boys didn't hurt anyone or anything, aside from their need for rest.

"There's a talk you and I need to have," Robert said, his eyes also looking ahead and not sidelong at his brother. "But now is not the time. It's the harvest."

Picard frowned in the darkness. When he had left three years ago, the relationship between himself and his brother had been entirely civil, a civility they'd never really had between one another. The captain couldn't recall what would lead to this sudden end to the civility, but ended it certainly had. Robert had been cross and tight-lipped with him for the past week, some of his moods even extending to the children. Yet he had seen Robert practically animated when speaking with Allie this afternoon, he wondered what they could have possibly been talking about. Except he shouldn't have to wonder, as they had a lot in common, were very much alike, so they probably had plenty to speak about. "What's happened in the past three years, Robert?" he asked. "It can't be the lack of interaction with one another, as that tends to make things better, not worse."

"A lot has changed recently," Robert said.

He couldn't deny that. "Yes." He also knew that he couldn't ask, because that was what Robert was upset about, and it would lead straight to an argument.

"I believe it will only be two more weeks until we've gotten all of the grapes in," said Robert, a hand sweeping out to brush against the leaves. "Then you and I can..."

"Square off?"

Robert glanced at him. "No." The scowl settled back on his face as he turned his head forward again.

Jean-Luc shared his scowl. Most of the time, for as long as he could remember, he couldn't figure out what would make his brother happy. His brother and his father had been much alike that way, that finding out what would make them even just content was impossible. It was as if they searched for things to make them unhappy, things to scowl about, complain about, that the slightest bit of happiness let into their lives would somehow make them weak. But he knew he was wrong, he knew some things that made his brother happy. Certain people—Marie, Rene. His vines, the wines that the vineyard produced year after year. Then when it came to him, how he could make his brother happy, he couldn't seem to divine it. Even now, he'd returned to work the harvest, to have his children know and understand what it meant to be a Picard, to see this new child born in their home village, and Robert was still unhappy with him. It made him feel like a little boy again sometimes, trying to please his elder brother, make him proud.

The same as he'd wanted to do with his father and that had never happened, either. Perhaps it was destined to be the same with his brother, that Robert would never be satisfied or proud in any way of anything that his younger brother did. "What do you want from me?" he asked.

"From you?" Robert's eyes widened and again, he faced his brother. "Not _from_ you. _For_ you. But not right now. As I said, it's the harvest. We have to put this aside for now and take it up again when all the grapes are in." He sighed. "Remember, when we were boys?"

"That was a long time ago."

"Yes. Longer still for some of us. But do you recall how it was during the harvest? How peaceful it was?"

Picard nodded. "Yes." _I never want this time to end_. "Maman loved the harvest."

"We need to keep it. It's as sacred as any of the other traditions."

He agreed, so he said nothing, and continued to walk with his brother. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but Robert was entirely right, the harvest was meant to be peaceful, and they would have to put it entirely aside until it was over. Then they could let everything go and most likely, it would turn out somewhat like it had three years ago, bruised, muddied, and then civil. He hoped, anyway, that there would be understanding on both sides before one of them died. It hadn't turned out that way with his father, and that's part of what frightened him so much about his own son, that somehow they would become estranged themselves. They already had so little time together, with him already being sixteen and now looking in the direction of the Academy himself, that the captain found himself wary of screwing it up. Yet he knew that the child about to be born within a few weeks would also be a son, and that frightened him more still. He would know this boy from the moment he came into the world, and that gave him, he thought, more time to make the same mistakes his own father had.

Robert had managed not to fall into the trap their father had, but then again, Robert had never doubted the love and support of their father. Maurice and Robert had never traded harsh words, nothing that could even approach the words that Jean-Luc and Maurice had come to exchange. So being a father must have come easy to Robert, the captain thought, because he was never afraid of making mistakes. He wondered how their father would have done if he'd had a daughter. They were entirely different creatures from sons, so beguiling, so powerful in how they could command your love and affection from the moment you met them, whether as an infant or later in their lives. Perhaps if they'd had a sister, their mother wouldn't have always had to play peacekeeper between each of them, someone managing to keep them all together as a family despite their differences.

And differences they had. Maurice and Robert, always looking towards the past, Jean-Luc's gray eyes trained on the future. What would a sister have looked for? Then the captain realized, he had never known where his mother had looked, if she looked to the past as her husband and elder son, or towards the future, like her youngest son. Jean-Luc had never quite figured out exactly what had so angered his father about his decision to join Starfleet. After all, he was the younger son, and traditionally, second sons either entered the priesthood or the military, so his choice would have been the twenty-fourth century equivalent of the same. The family line would continue, as would the family business, as Robert had already shown both interest and a fine aptitude for it. He'd never quite figured out what could please his father, but he knew that it certainly hadn't been Starfleet.

"How well do you know your children?" Robert asked, his voice a whisper above the movement of the leaves on the vines.

"Pardon?" This time it was Jean-Luc giving his brother a surprised glance.

"It's a simple question. How well do you know your children?"

The captain couldn't decide what to ask next. Of course, he was mulling over the exact answer and not any further questions. Yet he also wanted to know what made his brother ask, if his children were in any sort of trouble and if his brother was keeping it from him, what the question had to do with anything out on this night's walk.

At his silence, Robert answered his most important unasked question. "They're all safe, Jean-Luc. It's a question, that's all."

Picard found it fascinating, this new level of communication he had with his brother, all based on fatherhood. How Robert had immediately understood that thread of fear that wound through them all at the slightest threat to their child, how their safety had to be assured before any further coherent thought could be made. And with that safety now assured, Jean-Luc mulled over a true answer. He knew that Robert wouldn't tell him why he had asked until given a proper answer. So he had to figure one out. _How well do I know them?_

Andrew, he'd thought about him a lot lately, because of the impending arrival of another son, one he'd know since birth, one he would even see born. Already, he felt an awful guilt that he had missed nearly everything with his eldest son, afraid that it would become a rift to divide them yet again. That perhaps it would even create a rift between Andrew and his younger brother, a sort of jealousy that their father had spent so much time with the younger boy. But it also couldn't be helped, not unless Jean-Luc refused to spend time his new son until he reached the same age his brother had been when Jean-Luc entered his life. Except the captain hadn't chosen for that to happen, it just had.

Or perhaps it had been entirely his choice. If he had stayed with Beverly that night, instead of leaving under the cloak of dark guilt, he would have known Andrew since his birth. The same went for Allie, his twin. He might even come close to understanding his perplexing daughter, a young woman so perceptive that she could play intermediary between her father and his complicated emotional walls, between her brother and his own issues with his sensitivity. Seeing her here, she fit in unbelievably well, as if she had spent her entire life on the vineyard. Even speaking with her uncle Robert as if she'd known him all her life, and understood him as well as she understood her father and brother. Maybe she did. After all, they were each a Picard male, the two brothers and one brother's son.

The captain wondered if his brother was reminded of their mother the same way he was in some of the things Allie did and said. Yes, there was a physical resemblance in the shape of her face, certain ways she would cant her head and look at them, and seem to see far beyond the first emotional mask they would present. Her eyes were different from Yvette's, they were blue, like Beverly's, not gray, as Yvette's had been. Jean-Luc furrowed his brow as his thoughts continued, connecting the stray bits of information, such as eye color in his family. Maurice and Robert both had blue eyes, the same as Allie. But Yvette had had gray eyes, like her younger son had inherited. Then Jean-Luc's children had that same division, and there also seemed to be a division of interest that came with them. Maurice, Robert, Allie, all tied to the land in some way, happy to continue the traditions of the past. Jean-Luc, Andrew, Gracie, each in some fashion heading out to the stars, in search of the future. If somehow those traits were tied together, what had Yvette looked toward? If she had the same interests as her younger son and grandchildren, how easily had she given them up to choose to go to and stay on the vineyard with Maurice?

Maybe it was only idle speculation on his part. While Andrew and Allie seemed to have chosen their life's paths, Gracie was only a five year old little girl. Her interested ran the gamut so far, from medicine to command to botany. At least he had more time with his younger daughter, so he could come to know her better, watch her as she grew into a beautiful young woman. Allie, she would be leaving them soon, as her brother would be. Jean-Luc knew she was applying for schools here on Earth, she had even gone two a couple interviews in the past week. She'd kept nearly everything from them about if she'd gotten offered any admissions from any of the schools. They knew she would be attending school on Earth, that they wouldn't have much time with her once she and Andrew returned to the _Enterprise_. She had told them she wanted to get a slot for the start of a winter term, she didn't want to wait until the following fall to begin. With Andrew, if he gained an appointment to the Academy, he wouldn't start until the traditional mid-summer reporting date of the school's freshman cadet class.

So little time with them all. "Not as well as I should. I haven't known them long enough," he finally said aloud. It was the only answer he could put into words.

Robert gave a small smile, one that he allowed his brother to catch. "We can never know them long enough," he said. "There are things we will never quite know about our children. Our father had that same problem. Tell me, do you remember when you first became interested in the stars?"

The second question took the captain aback even more than the first. Robert had never inquired him about the stars like that without some animosity, yet when he had just asked, there hadn't been any animosity in his tone or facial expression. He was truly curious. Picard searched for an answer as he had with the question preceding, but couldn't seem to come up with a time that he wasn't fascinated with the night sky and all its workings, a time when he didn't want to be out there. "I don't recall when I wasn't."

"I remember when it really started," he said. "You were very small, only three or four. Père had put you to bed instead of Maman, and you were quite unhappy about it. You snuck out of bed as soon as he had gone into his room, I believe you had been looking for Maman. Well, you ended up finding her, she was outside with a telescope, studying a comet."

Then he remembered that night. The memory crept back, faded at first, then growing in its vividness as Robert continued to speak. "You see, there are some things I know about Maman that Père told me before he died. I know that you know she met him at the Sorbonne, but did you know she was studying historical astronomy? That she had been accepted to a program where civilians were to go out on starships to go and see what would take years to be witnessed on Earth? You didn't. Only Père knew, aside from Maman. I want you to remember that night with Maman, as you both discovered comets. Then I want you to think again about what happened between you and Père that night when you left for good, the day after we had buried Maman. You need to have those memories and those thoughts again before you and I can speak about what is between us now."

Jean-Luc nodded, it was all he could do.

Robert nodded back. "I'll see you tomorrow." Then his brother walked back to the house, leaving him standing alone in the moonlight, his memories surrounding him.

His feet remembered in full before the rest of him did, taking him slowly over to the small hill where he'd found his mother. He'd been so small then, even smaller than Gracie was now, a thrill of excitement filling him at sneaking out of the house without his father finding out.

2309

Yvette Picard again triggered the shutter that would expose the film to take the photograph of the comet blazing a path across the night sky. It caught her again, the ironic combination of old and new technology she used, both an illustration of her interests, history and astronomy. The idea of it hadn't crossed her mind until she witnessed the passing of Halley's comet in the sky when she was sixteen and then it had taken hold of her in a strong grip, this curiosity of what those that came before her must have thought about this bright object.

Always, she had been a student of history, but never before had quite made the connection between the present and history so strongly. She had just begun a class that studied the entirety of the Hundred Years War and one of the earlier precursors of the long-standing war between France and England had been the Battle of Hastings in 1066. When she found out the name of the comet, she recalled its inclusion in the Bayeux Tapestry—the comet had been a sign of doom for the English and the eventual defeat at Hastings, along with the death of their king Harold II. She had been floored at the idea of witnessing something that those people had also seen long ago. She wanted to know more and knew she'd found what she wanted to study.

Movement at the bottom of the hill caught her eye and she turned away from the telescope. Struggling up the hill on his four-year-old legs was her youngest son, Jean-Luc. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?" she asked him once he got close enough to hear without her having to shout.

"I'm not tired," he replied, very seriously.

She frowned. "Does your father know you're out here?"

Yvette had to fight to hold in her smile when her son's gray eyes immediately went wide. "No!" Then his small face turned pleading. "Please don't tell him."

She put an arm around him and drew him close. Because she was sitting, he stood even with her. "It will be our secret," she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you," he said. His eyes looked over her setup, at the telescope, the camera, the notebook she had out. The notebook was familiar, Maurice kept the vineyard's records in bound paper notebooks, the same as his father, and his grandfather, and every other Picard that had run the vineyard. But the others, he hadn't seen much of them, certainly not the telescope. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.

"A telescope." Of course, this produced more questions from her intensely curious son, all of which she answered, explaining to him what a comet was, showing him through the eyepiece of the telescope, telling him that the night he'd been born, a comet had been in the sky—Tempel 2. While not as famous as Halley's comet, it was still a comet that had been around for hundreds of years, circling their solar system. When her younger son had first opened his eyes, and she saw that they were gray, like hers, she felt certain that this boy would be the first Picard to head out into the galaxy. It warmed her to think of it, this sensitive and brilliant little boy would be the start of a new era for the Picards, all while the older tradition would continue with Robert. Already a tall sturdy boy of nine, Robert loved the vineyard, loved the work, and knew what he was going to be when he grew up. Watching her younger son study the night sky, seeing the look in his eyes, she knew what he would be doing when he grew up, even if he didn't know it yet.

She also knew that it would make her husband unhappy. When she had declined her appointment to the new program with the Federation, the one where a group of historical astronomers would visit space events in the galaxy that wouldn't make their way to Earth's night sky for hundreds of years, Maurice had been disappointed. Not in her, but in himself, that he would be the cause of her giving up her dreams. But she had studied at the university already for six years, the program was merely an extension of her work. Maurice never quite understood that she could live both in the past and the future, that both suited her just fine. She knew he blamed himself for what he saw as her giving up her dreams for him and the vineyard. And now Jean-Luc would remind him of that, serving to make Maurice more unhappy, instead of pleased at his son's interests.

She hoped it wouldn't end badly, but right now, it was only the beginning of her son's dreams. When she noticed her son's eyes drooping as he fought off sleep, she packed up her belongings in her bag and slung it across her shoulder. Then she picked him up, already falling asleep on her shoulder, and brought him inside. Maurice, reading over one of the trade journals on the sofa, stood when she walked in the door.

He raised his eyebrows when he saw their son asleep in her arms. "How the devil did he get out?"

Yvette grinned at him. "That's the problem when your children are smarter than you are. Robert was just as bad." She amended her statement. "_Is_ just as bad."

Maurice shared in her smile and reached out to smooth Jean-Luc's tousled blond hair. "He's always getting into things."

"He's a very curious boy. That's why he came out to see me, wanted to know what I was doing out there."

"Did he understand?"

"I believe so. He was quite fascinated."

Maurice's smile grew wider. "Of course he was, he's very much your son." He held out his arms and Yvette handed him the sleeping boy. The tall vintner kissed the top of his young son's head. "And I'm glad he's like you. Robert is too much like me, I think. The rascal could use your civilized nature."

"Oh, he's still your son. Which means eventually, he'll lose that beautiful hair of his." Her eyes danced with mischief at the jab.

"One can always hold out hope for a genetic aberration, that he could escape that particular curse." Maurice smiled down at the boy, then back at his wife. "You go back out and watch your comet. I'll put him to bed again. I think this time, he'll stay put."

Yvette stayed indoors for a few moments and watched as Maurice strode up the stairs, careful to not jostle and waken their boy. She loved how vulnerable her husband became around the little boys, but now that they were growing older, he hid that love he had most of the day, showing it in other ways instead of being physically affectionate. He rarely hugged them anymore. She knew it wasn't because he didn't love them, but because he hated feeling vulnerable in any way. Maurice had a carefully constructed wall around him that he only let her see behind. She wished he would allow his sons to see behind them once they were old enough to remember, but he was set in his ways and a match for her own stubborn nature. For now, she would have to be content with these moments, watching as her husband became outwardly tender and loving of his boys, yet only when they were asleep.

When they had gone from her view, Yvette headed back outside to watch the comet pass through the vineyard's night sky.

2370

Captain Picard studied the sky, knowing that his mother's favorite comet had last passed within the view of the naked eye over the vineyard in 2365. He remembered being absolutely amazed at the comet he'd seen through the telescope, couldn't keep his eyes from it until his small body had told him otherwise, falling asleep in his mother's arms. When he awoke the next day, his father hadn't said a word about it, so he figured his mother must not have told him. From then on, he went with his mother to look at the stars, she told him about galaxies, supernovas, and more comets. How, at times, the comets and supernovas in ancient history were so bright that they could be seen in broad daylight. His thoughts came to a halt as he realized the importance of 2365—his youngest had been born that year. He smiled, knowing that his mother would find that a lovely happenstance, to have a granddaughter born when Halley's comet was visible from Earth yet again.

His feet moved again, from the hilltop over to the small family plot. He hadn't been to the plot in many years, not since the day they buried his mother. First his father and then Robert had kept the cemetery well landscaped, keeping the weeds clear and never overgrown. Maman had done so much for him and Jean-Luc hadn't remembered or realized that it was she who had first sparked his interest in the stars. Yet Robert had remembered every bit of it and reminded his younger brother without a trace of anger or jealousy.

It bothered him, because he'd always thought himself the one who had been closer to their mother, while Robert had been close to their father. But it seemed Robert knew much more about their mother than he did. He frowned. He knew so little about her, especially only now realizing how much influence she had on him. If he hadn't gotten out of the house that night, would he even be a Starfleet captain now? Was that what his brother was getting at? He frowned again and sat on the low stone wall that surrounded the family plot, studying his mother's grave. His mother had never been one to wield her influence in any strong manner that wasn't welcome. Certainly, she would make sure her sons did the right thing, but she had never driven them to do anything they hadn't wanted, except perhaps eat their vegetables as children.

But if he hadn't wanted to head for the stars, she wouldn't have encouraged it. No, it had been his own choice, even with her help in continuing to further his interest. He had never seen his parents exchange unkind words, so his father couldn't have been aware of Yvette's role in his life choices. Or had he known? Robert had brought up that last argument before he'd left and not returned. Maurice hadn't thrown him out, he had chosen first to leave the house that night, and then not to come back. He hadn't felt welcome, hadn't felt a bit part of his family anymore, not with his mother gone. His father had served only to remind him of that constantly that night he just couldn't take it anymore.

2327

Jean-Luc Picard had known the peace wouldn't last forever. In fact, it had only lasted until this morning, when he'd woken in his childhood home and for the first time, realized that his mother wouldn't be downstairs, wouldn't be in the library, or out in the barn or the vineyard. Instead, her body was interred in the family plot. She was gone.

And he was alone.

It was cold outside in the winter's cutting wind, but inside, it had been even colder. Maurice and Robert had fallen silent on all issues except the upcoming spring for the vineyard. They hadn't even bothered to include Jean-Luc in on the conversation, just going on as if he weren't there at all. Which, he decided, was probably for the best. Anytime any of them tried to speak about anything involving deep emotion, an argument generally followed and nothing was solved in the end anyway. All of them were strapped that way, fighting was easier, and silence was best overall.

Finally, the temperature chased him back indoors as night started to fall early, as it did every winter. His father and brother sat at the dining table, going over plans for a new type of wine for the vineyard to produce within the next few years. He didn't ask about it, he wouldn't be around when it finally came out, he would be somewhere out in the galaxy, exploring. He hoped, anyway. The Kobayashi Maru still waited for him upon his return to school. Though this circumstance seemed as hopeless as any test they could put him through, trying to get along with his father and brother without the presence of his mother. He would leave again in a few days, then come back after graduation, during his month's leave before being shipped out to his first posting. If his father would have him, which he wasn't sure about anymore.

Inside, the fire crackling away in the hearth was a welcoming warmth, but it did nothing to fend off the coldness from his relatives. Ignoring the two members left of his family that were ignoring him, he went upstairs, then made his way into the attic, looking for his mother's telescope. His father and brother wouldn't have any use for it, so he wanted to bring it back with him to the Academy, then take it with him wherever he went after that. That way, he'd have something tangible with him to remember his mother by.

He found the box where his mother kept her things during the colder months, when the weather wasn't terribly cooperative with stargazing. The box was empty. Newly empty, as dust or cobwebs hadn't yet taken residence. Jean-Luc scowled. Her notes would be nice, too, he could keep them up himself, continuing her little tradition, like Robert did for their father and the vineyard. Actually, he really wanted just the notes. He would be out _in_ the stars he and his mother had looked at all his life, there wouldn't be a need for a telescope any longer. But the notes, he could continue on with those. She'd live on that way, too.

The cadet closed up the attic and went back downstairs, intent on finding out where his mother's things had gone off to. His father and brother must have sensed his determination, because when he entered the living room this time, they both looked up.

Robert said nothing, instead fiddling with the pencil in his hand.

Maurice spoke. "What is it?"

Fear went through him at the idea of confronting his father again, but he had to know. "Where are Maman's things?"

"What things are you talking about?" The tall man sat back in his chair, crossing his arms and studying his younger son.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Jean-Luc replied.

Robert chose that moment to make himself scarce and disappeared from the room, going somewhere upstairs and away from the coming storm.

"No, I don't."

Jean-Luc attempted to keep his temper in check, he didn't want to play this game with his father, his mother's notes were too important. "Her notes. Where are her notes?"

Maurice inclined his head once in his son's direction. Behind Jean-Luc, the fire popped and danced. Slowly, he got his father's meaning. "You didn't."

"They had no meaning without your mother. I had no use for them without her here. However, they did kindle a good fire."

He couldn't believe what his father was saying, that even he could be that callous as to burn something of Yvette's, especially so soon after her death. "They have meaning to me, you know," he said, his tone just above the crackling of the fire. "Had."

"You'll be out there among all those stars she wrote about, you have no need of that damn notebook, and you never will. It served its purpose."

"What purpose was that?"

Maurice shrugged. "Many things, most for your mother. Some for you, I think, but you're going beyond a need for it. There isn't anything here that you'll want to remember as you go out into your damn stars."

"Perhaps it might occur to you that I would want to remember my family?" He might not always agree with his father, but he loved him and respected him. After all, the man was his father. The man had always tolerated his pursuits, as long as he kept up with his chores on the vineyard. He'd objected to his going to the Academy, loudly objected, but had never expressly forbid it. So once Yvette gave her blessing for her son to go, he went without any reservation.

The vintner stood and gave his son a hard glare, one as cold as the winter now raging outside. "Jean-Luc, if you cared anything about your family right now, you wouldn't be going back to that Academy. Your place is here. Your mother supported your going, but she isn't here any longer. You need to put aside this silly dream of yours to journey into the stars and get your feet firmly on the soil here." He tapped his finger on the tabletop. "_This_ is what it means to be a Picard, to remain here, tend the vines, run the vineyard, as all of your ancestors have done. As your mother did. Going out there? That isn't what a Picard would do, it's too much like running away from your responsibilities. It's time you grew up and faced them and did what you were meant to do."

"That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to graduate, get my commission, and one day, I'll be a captain in command of my own ship."

"The vines have been here for hundreds of years. Who do you think you are to turn your back on them, on your family?"

"The stars have been around for even longer! How can you even talk about turning your back on your family when you've taken something so precious to Maman and burned it away just to start a fire? You couldn't be satisfied just to box it up and leave it alone, you had to make sure it was completely gone, just like Maman. It makes no sense for you to stand here and tell me I'm turning my back on my family when you've already done exactly that to her. She would never want me staying here against my will, you know that. She told us to follow our hearts and mine leads straight out into the galaxy. It isn't my fault that I can't look to the past like you and Robert do, that's where your hearts are. Mine isn't. Mine is out there somewhere and I've got to follow it. She at least had the ability to see both the past and the future and was able to exist in the present. It's too bad you don't have that ability yourself, that way you wouldn't have to take what you have in the present and make it into history, like you did with her notes. Sure, she's dead, now everything about her has to be dead as well. Is that what you want?"

"I told you," Maurice said, his calm tone a discordant note to his son's rising one. "Without your mother, they had no meaning. They served their purpose. That purpose is now behind us and your future is here on the vineyard."

"So that _is_ what you want. You want everything about her gone."

"That isn't what I said. I said—"

He didn't want to hear his father say again that he didn't want him. It's exactly what he was saying, that he didn't want his own son, because his son didn't see fit to stay on the vineyard as all the Picards before him had. "Because I can arrange that. I'll be gone tonight, if you'd like, since I seem to remind you too much of her with what my dreams and all."

Maurice stopped his attempt to explain himself. "If you leave, you're throwing away hundreds of years of tradition. The vines—"

Again, his son interrupted him. "Have lived hundreds of years. But those stars out there? They've been around for thousands of years, hundreds of thousands. If you'd read anything of what Maman wrote, you'd know that, you might even appreciate it." He paused and looked at the fire behind him, burning merrily in the face of the argument. "You might have been satisfied with the paper instead of the ashes you've created." By then, there wasn't anything there resembling paper, just the bright orange fire and the glowing coals underneath. Ashes would come later, cold and gray and dead. It hit him then, more strongly than when he'd woken this morning, that his mother was gone. He wouldn't be taking anything of her with him, his father had seen to that.

His father didn't reply, his blue eyes were trained on the fire, Jean-Luc could see the flickering reflection of it in his pupils.

Jean-Luc spoke in defiance of the silence. "You can burn those papers in effigy, but it isn't going to change my mind. It certainly isn't going to change anything Maman has influenced in my life, in Robert's, even in yours. I turn my back and I see the future, while you turn your back and see the past, and now each time you'll have to witness what you've done to excise her from your life once she died. But you won't see me, don't concern yourself over that. Go look at your ashes, it might be all you have left in the end."

Still, Maurice didn't reply, and Jean-Luc took his silence to be approval of his son's desire to leave. So Jean-Luc left as his father wished, taking only his jacket with him before he stepped back out into the winter night.

2370

Forty-four years later, and the memory still upset him. He hadn't returned once after that, not until he'd come back three years ago. He should have been more understanding of his father's grief, the man had just lost his wife of many years. A shiver ran through him and he nodded a good-bye to the gravestones and walked back to the house. His brother's questions had only led to more questions and questions from those questions.

The house was still when he stepped inside. The fireplace got only a passing glance, he needed to put everything from his mind until he could speak with Robert again. His brother was right, it was enough gravity to it all that it would have to wait until after the grapes were in, it was the only way peace could be kept.

Beverly's eyes opened as soon as he'd gotten under the covers. "You're cold."

He wrapped his arm around her and hugged her close. "I know." The coldness had settled within him, the same as he'd felt trudging through the snow to the shuttle station in the village, the same as he'd felt when he thought his father had disowned him. "And you're not."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The hushed voices of two people having an argument and trying to keep quiet in spite of it welcomed Beverly Picard to the morning.

"I really think you should compete, Papa."

"We spoke about this earlier. I haven't fenced competitively in a long time, I've been too busy with my work. I've only done recreational fencing and that does nothing to prepare you for a tournament at this level. I wouldn't do very well." The diplomat always in the Starfleet captain formed his baritone into soft and reasonable logic. Something easy for anyone to take.

Except, perhaps, for his five-year-old daughter. "You can still win."

"I think you may have a bit of a biased view. This is your first tournament, I'll be going, but all I'll be doing is watching you and your brother and sister."

There was a pause as Gracie considered her father's statement. The captain was right, she did have a bias towards her father and his—to her—heroic abilities. Beverly resisted smiling. Jean-Luc was a hero to many people and that fact galled him, because he viewed himself as nothing more than an ordinary man. Of course, he was anything but ordinary, and surprised himself when he did anything that didn't fit that definition. They had talked about this tournament for the past few days, after Andrew had brought it up. It was held every year, the Compétition de Vendange, a fencing tournament before the last day of the harvest. It had first started as a way to get most of the young people out of the way as the vineyard owners finalized preparations for the _fête de vendange_—the grape harvest festival. The last day of the harvest was now largely symbolic and most of the day would be spent in celebration, with only a few hours in the morning devoted to taking in the last of the grapes from the vines.

In time, the tournament had grown enough that it took in most of the fencers in the small town, many from the surrounding towns, and drew an even larger audience for the highly charged event. Andrew had been immediately intrigued by the challenge it presented and entered right when he found out. When he came back to the vineyard, he'd convinced Allie to enter as a warm up to the Federation Cup in Paris, then gotten Gracie in on the idea of it being her first tournament, as they had an eight and under category as well as the senior open events. As the Compétition got closer, Andrew talked more about it, especially about how facing French fencers would be a great opportunity, since France ran the Federation's official fencing organization, the same a it had Earth's official fencing organization when fencing first became a sport.

Gracie had become enamored with the idea of her father winning the open foil event and had been hounding him for over a week. Jean-Luc had patiently explained to her, again and again, the reasons behind his decisions not to compete, but the little girl just wouldn't give up, hence the final plea on the morning of the tournament.

"Do you have all your gear put together?" Picard asked. Beverly felt the emptiness in the bed next to her, Jean-Luc had already gotten up and dressed before she'd even stirred from her sleep.

"You're changing the subject," came the girl's quick reply.

"The subject is closed, so I merely moved on."

Gracie paused again at her father's logic. Beverly heard the door open during the pause and heavier feet take a few steps inside the bedroom. "Come on, we're going to be late," said Andrew.

"Papa won't go," said Gracie.

"At all?" asked Andrew, his surprise evident.

"I won't be competing. We've discussed this." This time, a bit of weariness on the subject crept into Picard's usually even timbre.

"I know," said Andrew. "You've got to stop bugging him. He already said no." His last remark was directed to his sister.

"He's never said no to me before."

The little girl's voice sounded so innocently bewildered at the idea of her father saying no that Beverly couldn't keep the snort of laughter from escaping. Andrew laughed at the same time, his attempts at muffling it failing entirely. "Well, I think that means you're now in some auspicious company. Papa's certainly said no to enough dignitaries that it could be considered an insult if he didn't once say no to you," he said.

"Mom, make him go." Gracie stepped sprightly over to her mother's side of the bed now that she knew here mother was awake. "I know he can't say no to _you_."

Again, Beverly couldn't contain her laughter. "Oh, your father has said no to me many, many times over. So many that I think I've lost count." She opened her eyes to find her daughter glaring at her.

"You're laughing at me," she said.

"I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at the situation."

When Beverly saw her daughter bite down on her lower lip, she knew something really was bothering her, and that her mother's explanation wasn't coming close to cutting it. She held her arms out. "Come here."

The little girl's eyes had gone from the hardened steel of anger to a tender pool of vulnerability. At times, she could be so much like her father. For a moment, she stood and looked at Beverly, then finally took a few steps forward and clambered into the bed beside her.

The two males in the room quickly made their escape, treading softly over the floorboards so as not to disturb them.

The doctor scooted herself up to lean back against the headboard and Gracie sat next to her, head resting on her mother's shoulder. "I meant it when I said I wasn't laughing at you," Beverly told her.

"I don't know," said Gracie. "I've heard people say that before and mean exactly the opposite." She'd taken an edge of the quilt and started twisting it around, giving her fingers something to do.

"I don't say things I don't mean. Yes, I do kid around, I do make jokes. But when you said so seriously that you thought your father couldn't say no to me, I laughed because he says no to me so _often_."

Gracie looked up at her. "I don't think he really does."

"You've heard us argue with one another over all sorts of issues, either ship's business, moral quandaries, the prime directive. It's the same as saying no over and over and over again," Beverly explained. "We disagree over many things and agree about just as many. But we both understand one another and where the other is coming from, so it might not sound like 'no' to you."

Beverly knew her daughter understood when she changed the subject. She did that sometimes, not changing the subject because she was uncomfortable, but because she'd learned what she wanted to and had decided to move on. So her subject change had everything to do with realizing her mother had been telling the truth that she wasn't being laughed at, and everything else to do with wanting to know other things. "Why won't Papa fence? I want to see him win."

She wasn't exactly sure how to reply at first, Jean-Luc had so many reasons why he refused to fence in the tournament, first and foremost his sense of pride that he also refused to acknowledge. "Basically, my dear, he doesn't want to embarrass himself," she said.

Mirth bubbled into the girl's eyes and she did her best to contain it. "How would he embarrass himself?"

"Well, he really isn't prepared to compete. After all, he hasn't been practicing like the three of you have. He's somewhat rusty and probably wouldn't do very well. For a man like your father, for a lot of people, actually, that would be embarrassing. It's because people have a certain expectation of him, a lot like you do, that he'll win because he's Jean-Luc Picard. So he feels a responsibility to live up to that expectation and feels badly when he doesn't. But, that isn't the most important reason."

Gracie frowned. "Then what's the most important reason?"

"This is your first tournament, and he doesn't want to take the attention away from you. He'd rather support you and coach you than go and fence for himself."

Her small fingers stopped twisting the quilt and instead drummed on the mattress as she thought over everything. Beverly kept quiet, she knew Gracie was sorting through everything in her head before she made a final decision. The doctor had a feeling that once her little girl grew up, she'd be the most level headed of all her children. Of all of them, Gracie was the least afraid of asking the questions that would leave her most vulnerable to psychological pain, and had no problems in mulling over her thoughts for as long as she felt necessary before rendering a decision. The child tended to be so reasonable at times that people forgot she was only five years old.

Sometimes, Beverly forgot as well. As Gracie thought, the doctor ran her hand through her daughter's auburn hair, enjoying having a moment with her alone, a moment growing increasingly hard to fine and would only become more scarce as time went on. She couldn't help but compare this day with the day that had happened months before, only a day after they'd buried Nana. Andrew and Allie had fenced, but Beverly had barely taken notice of any of it, she'd been too busy trying to keep anyone from finding out about her past and who they all really were. Now she would be free to watch and not worry, to spend as much time as she wanted with Jean-Luc instead of searching for ways to get rid of him.

Her hands rested on her abdomen, wondering when the child inside her was going to start his kicking again. For a boy who had spent most of the pregnancy incredibly active, he'd certainly settled down in the last day or so. And as if they'd traded off, she'd felt her own burst of energy lately, finding many things to do, organize and take care of before she ran out of time.

"Okay," Gracie finally said, moving her hands to where her mother's were.

Beverly raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I think I understand," she said, giving a solemn nod of her head, then cast a frown down at her hands. "What was that?"

"Something I've been having for at least a week. Nothing to worry about." Her daughter's had been resting on her belly when one of the damn Braxton-Hicks contractions hit. It meant nothing in terms of real labor unless it was your first child and you'd yet to feel real contractions. These ones reminded Beverly of a charley horse without the blazing pain of that particularly nasty type of muscle cramp. Her entire abdominal wall became rock hard, and that's exactly what Gracie was feeling.

"What _are_ they? Are you okay? Is my brother okay?"

Beverly smiled and smoothed Gracie's hair. "We're fine. It's completely normal. It doesn't hurt either of us at all. It's like practice for the real thing."

Gracie slid out of the bed and straight onto her feet, yet keeping on hand on her mother's abdomen. "You're going to have him soon?"

"Not for another week or so. Don't get over excited. It's why I haven't told your father, he'd react just like you." She paused. "No, he'd be worse. So don't tell him. Let me be the one to do it. And I mean it, young lady. I know how awful you are at keeping secrets."

"It's going away now," Gracie said, not acknowledging her mother's admonishment.

And it was. Beverly felt her abdominal wall relax and return to its normal state. "Yes, it is. Everything is fine. Just practice."

Gracie sighed, dropped her hand way, and went to crack open the door. "Andrew's going to be mad 'cause I've made us late."

The doctor rose, the task of getting out of the bed not as hard as she remembered it to be these past few months. "You'll still be early. You know how he gets before a tournament."

"I hadn't thought of that," she said. "Are you coming to watch?"

"I wouldn't dare miss it." Beverly kissed the top of her head. "Now get going. We'll meet you guys there in an hour or so."

Her daughter gave her a bright smile and then bolted from the room and thundered down the stairs, her mood completely lifted. A shout told Beverly that Andrew had decided his sister needed some speeding up, then another shout told her that Allie had decided her twin needed to be nicer to their younger sister. Then they all clattered out the door and the house became still with the absence of the children. Rene had long since gone out to the vineyard with Robert to help out with the final preparations for the next day.

"Is it safe to come in?" Jean-Luc had stuck his head through the doorway, leaving most of his body out of sight and safely behind the wall.

She blinked. "Yes, why wouldn't it be?" she asked as she made her way over to the bureau to find some clean clothes.

The captain took a cautious step into the room. "You've only just woken up and not by your own choice. That alone can lead to disastrous consequences."

Beverly rolled her eyes and stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door in his face. "I think you're blowing my moods out of proportion." When silence met her from the other side of the closed door, she turned on the shower and stepped in. She hadn't locked the door, so if he really wanted to discuss anything, he could come in. If not, he would leave her alone to wake herself up and become somewhat civil.

At least, that's how the routine usually went, but she'd woken up in a good mood, which almost never happened. A puff a cold air drifted into the shower as the door opened and closed and Jean-Luc walked into the room. "Really. Did you have to tell her I would embarrass myself?" he asked.

"So you _were_ listening." She rinsed the shampoo from her hair and waited for his answer.

All he gave her was a noncommittal grunt.

"Would you rather I not tell her the truth?" she asked.

"I'd rather the truth not be that I _would _embarrass myself if I were to compete today," he said. "But there's nothing I can do to change it. Aside from time travel."

"I'm sure that could be arranged somehow," she said as she reached down and shut off the water. Then she stuck her head through the curtain opening to look at her husband.

He couldn't hide his smile from her, not when it touched his eyes like it was doing now. "I think you woke up smiling this morning," he said. "I'm not sure what to make of it."

"Now how am I supposed to take that?" she asked, and pointed to a towel.

He handed it to her and took a careful step away so that he could reply from a place of relative safety. "Beverly, you _never_ wake up with a smile. In fact, I think the time record for you smiling after waking up is forty-seven minutes."

Her eyebrow went higher.

"Alyssa Ogawa timed it, if that's what you're asking," he said. "From the time you were paged until someone caught you cracking a grin, she had a clock running. And the reason you even smiled that early, by the way, was because you'd just delivered someone's baby. Therefore, I'm very uncertain about what to think when you're in this good of a mood this close to having woken up."

"There's nothing out of the ordinary going on. I do, on occasion, happen to wake up and not be grumpy." She wrapped the towel around her shoulders and stepped out of the shower. "I don't see what the problem is. And if there _is_ one, it's on your sid—" she stopped talking when she realized she'd lost his attention, at least verbally. His eyes, she had their attention. They hadn't moved from her body since she'd gotten out of the shower. But it wasn't lust she could see on his face, it was that sense of amazement and fascination with the female body, accompanied by open admiration, as if he were gazing at a piece of artwork.

"I love you," he said, confirming her suspicions about his frame of mind. He reached out as she dried herself off, gently touching her belly. "This has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen." He moved from where he'd been leaning on the counter and went to put his arms around her.

But she had too much to do today to allow herself to indulge in his attention. So she squirmed from his grasp and went to the mirror. Undeterred, he hugged her from behind, kissing her at the nape of her neck. "I mean it," he said, then met her eyes in the mirror in front of them.

It was in the mirror that she saw him form a slight frown. "What?" she asked.

"It's lower," he said. "I know I'm not imagining it." He shifted his hands on her abdomen, showing her. "I mean, my hands are in a different spot now. He's moved. Is that normal?"

"Yes," she said, placing her hands over his. "It happens towards the end of every pregnancy, it's called lightening. It's where the baby settles deeper into the pelvis in preparation for labor."

He stopped breathing, exactly as she had expected.

"Jean-Luc, this can happen weeks in advance. I'm not going to have him today. Or tomorrow for that matter."

His comment was wry in her ear. "Which is why you saw fit to tell our five-year-old about your Braxton-Hicks contractions and not me?"

A smile quirking the corner of her mouth, she turned her head and kissed him. "She's more reasonable than you are. She actually believed me."

"Let me tell you a secret," he whispered in her ear. "She told _me_ that she didn't believe a word you said and she's certain you'll have him today."

Beverly spun out of his arms and snatched up the clothing she'd brought in with her. "And just who are you going to believe? Your five-year-old or your wife who just happens to be a doctor?"

His look and fast steps out the doorway told her exactly whom he'd chosen to believe. When she went down the stairs, she felt the energy return, energy she'd missed in the past months, energy she thought stolen by her highly active unborn son. They were running late already, and the tournament was due to start in only thirty minutes. She knew Gracie would start to panic without her father there to coach her, since her brother and sister would both be busy competing on their own, and the salle's coach had many other fencers to attend to. They would also need food and plenty of water, or they would get dehydrated from all the sweating caused by the combination of the extensive protective gear and the fast pace of the exercise.

Without a word to Jean-Luc, she snatched a croissant from the kitchen and went outside. Once there, the scent of the ripened grapes wafted below her nose and she breathed deeply and easily. She continued to check off her mental list of things to do. Last night she'd managed to put together enough food for the day, they only had to bring the rest of the water the three children didn't carry out with them earlier this morning as they'd been laden with the rest of their gear. Then Beverly remembered it needed to be cool and she wasn't sure where the cold storage unit was. Abandoning her croissant and juice, she wandered back inside the house on a mission to find it.

Once inside, she came face to face with Jean-Luc. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"I need to find the cold storage unit," she said, stepping around him.

"Where's your croissant?"

Her feet halted. "Outside." This time, she was the one who frowned as the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle all fell together at once. It happened this way each time. First she'd get this burst of energy and feel as if she had to take care of everything all at once. No longer would she feel like sleeping in and lazing about for the entire day. Then the baby would drop and she could breathe so much more easily. After that, the energy level would continue to rise as the baby settled in for the trip out of the womb and into the world. _Shit_. The Howard signs never failed. Their son would be making his entrance within thirty-six hours. The fact that she'd forgotten her partially eaten breakfast in favor of getting a task done was a dead giveaway.

Jean-Luc's hand gently squeezed her shoulder to get her attention. "Beverly? Is everything okay?"

She wanted to tell him, but she also didn't want to deal with him being anxious through the rest of the day, and then all day tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that. Since he'd already shown the propensity to believe his five-year-old over his physician wife, she didn't have much confidence in being able to convince him that his son wouldn't just be popping out without any more warning.

"She's fine, Jean-Luc," Marie said, saving Beverly from deciding while walking through the door carrying a stack of bound notebooks. "Stop hovering. Just because the boy has dropped and now she's started nesting doesn't mean he'll be falling out without any more warning. I'm certain she won't be going into labor for at least two more days." Without another word, Marie disappeared into the office, leaving behind a stunned brother-in-law.

"Is that true?" he asked.

Beverly shrugged. "More or less. I give it thirty-six hours, tops. Not today, though. I'll take a reading with my tricorder just to make sure, but it won't be today. Earliest would be the day after tomorrow. Please, please try and stay calm. Concentrate on your other children today. They need this time with you, with us, before their brother is born."

He tore his concerned eyes from his wife and over to the closed office door. "How did she know?"

"She's a woman who's given birth herself. She just knew. Don't question it, it will make your brain implode." Then she went back to her search, leaving him as stunned as Marie had, and paused in her search only to use her tricorder to confirm her projections.

By the time she'd returned, storage unit in hand, he'd come to his senses and they headed out towards the center of the small town. Beverly relished the ability to breathe deeply again, something she swore each time she would never take for granted again, but eventually had. The similar memory of a walk like this in Caldos occupied her mind and become only stronger once they got to the venue. The Compétition was large enough that the organizers had forgone using the salle long ago and instead made use of the large athletic complex the local schools all utilized for their sports programs. Despite this venue being much larger than the last tournament she'd watched her children in, it was easier to locate them this time. Since moving away from the colony fencing circuit and into the mainstream Federation divisions found in living on a Starfleet vessel, they'd had to follow the uniform rules of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime, the main governing body of Federation fencing. This meant that each of them had their last name in letters ten centimeters tall displayed between their shoulders on the backs of their jackets.

Beverly located her youngest near the end of the long, open room. She nudged Jean-Luc and pointed him in that direction. "She looks so little," she said. Even amongst those in her age bracket, she seemed a lightweight, half a head shorter than the other little bodies wandering about in their fencing whites. Without her mask on, she was even easier to identify with her auburn hair.

"It's only because she is. Most of those children are seven or eight years old, they've got her by a couple years in terms of growth and maturity. I wasn't kidding when I told her she was very young to be starting," the captain said from his place next to her. His hand rested on the small of her back, an unconscious protective gesture.

"How do you think she'll do?" Beverly worried about each of them and their drive to be successful. Gracie had yet to truly compete, so she wasn't sure how the little girl would deal with it. Allie cruised through competitions, she loved fencing and enjoyed any opportunity to do it, never minding if she won or lost. Certainly, she liked to win and competed to the best of her ability, but never attached any self-worth to whether she won or lost. Andrew, on the other hand, had become very driven, almost desperately afraid of failure. Some of it, the doctor knew, was what he assumed others must expect from him, and had really gotten ratcheted up once he found out he was Captain Picard's son. But her son also put a lot of pressure on himself and half the time managed to completely psych himself out during tournaments. In team competitions, he always did very well, because he had his team to concentrate on leading and didn't have as much time to focus inward, keeping him distracted from his hang-ups. Individual competitions had become his bugbear, it always went one way or the other—he would either fence wonderfully or he would seem to lose his grace and ability and fence like a beginner.

"Her goal should be to get one touch in each of her bouts."

Beverly glared at her husband. "That's all you expect from her?"

He met her glare with open honesty and no trace of disappointment in his face. "That's all anyone should expect for their first tournament. One touch at a time, trying to get a touch per bout, and at best, trying not to come in last. Every fencer goes through it, it's a humbling experience, but a needed one. As for how well she'll really do, I have no idea. She's smaller than the others, so her target area will be harder for her opponents to hit. She's also very intelligent and reasonable, especially for her age, so that will give her a leg up. If she's more like Allie than Andrew, she might manage to end up in the upper half of the field, a fine finish for a first tournament. If she's more like Andrew, she'll pressure herself and will end up near the bottom of the pack."

At mention of Andrew, Beverly searched for him in the area where the clanging of impacting bellguards rang out. Lately, he'd been concentrating more on his epee game than his foil game and found that he much preferred the tactical and strategic freedom of epee. Whereas in foil, the target area was restricted to the chest and torso, in epee, anywhere on the body was considered a valid target. Andrew had explained that epee was a descendant of the duels to first blood, so that was all they were trying to do, get that first touch.

She found him, gripping his mask and weapon, his jaw set in total concentration. For now, he looked to be holding up reasonably well. Like his sister, without his mask he was much easier to spot because of his rust colored hair. She saw so much of his father in him then, at how set and determined his eyes had become, a stony gray granite.

Allie was on the opposite end of the room, fencing in the women's open foil event. On her part, she looked completely serene, her own eyes blue pools of calm.

"Are you going to be coaching the other two at all?" Beverly asked.

Jean-Luc shook his head. "No, that will be Félix's job, or one of the other salle coaches. They've reached an age where my job is only to watch." He paused when they both saw Gracie turn towards where they stood, her gray eyes wide in her search for her parents. "However, I think I'm lacking in helping her out. I need to get down there before she starts to panic."

"You might be too late." With a warm smile, Beverly handed him some extra bottles of water to bring with him, then watched him navigate quickly to the other end of the large gymnasium through an obstacle course of people who recognized him and wanted to speak with him. The little girl's face lit up when she saw him and ran over to give him a hug. The doctor let out a small laugh as Jean-Luc shooed her back into the competition area.

"He's turned out to be a very good man," someone said from behind her.

She turned to see the old weathered faced of Félix Rousseau, the head coach of the salle, and the very man who had coached Jean-Luc as a youth. "Félix," she said, greeting him. "You're right, he has. But aren't you supposed to be out there coaching?"

"I've long since delegated those responsibilities. I will help out in the finals, but keeping up with all these youngsters wears me out now. I'm an old man, Dr. Picard. I wasn't a very young man when I first met Jean-Luc. And now, I'm positively ancient." A twinkle dashed through his kind eyes, a twinkle of a well-meaning young man still living inside an old body.

"You couldn't be more than a hundred and five years old," she said.

"Flatterer," Félix said. "I'm a hundred and ten." His eyes traveling over to where first Allie and then Andrew were fencing, the pool rounds now underway. "I have to admit, it cheers me greatly to see your children fencing. Jean-Luc held such promise as a fencer, a potential to become one of the legends of fencing. But he gave up serious competition once he entered Starfleet Academy, choosing to concentrate on his other dreams and skills. While I understood and respected his choice, I've always wondered what that unlocked potential could have rendered in the end. I suppose I'll have to be happy to see that he did become a legend in another way, at least where Starfleet is concerned. Quite a hero, people make him out to be. He must get quite mortified when it's brought up. He was such an interesting boy, driven towards glory, and then when he gained it, nearly instantly he was acutely aware of the attention he'd gotten for himself and sought to cast it away. And yet, his reputation now is nearly mythical."

"It bothers him," Beverly said. "He really only sees himself as an ordinary human being. Yet at the same time, when he doesn't do something well, or finds himself unable to do something he expects he should be able to do, he's even more troubled. He expects great things of himself, even now."

The coach nodded. "Andrew is much the same way, I've noticed. At times, he completely forgets who he is and those are the best moments for him, at least in his fencing. He kept talking about this great opportunity to fence French fencers until I pointed out the name on the back of his jacket. At first he was so confused that it was highly amusing. 'Name?' he asked. 'I don't understand.' I nearly had to spell it out for him, that his last name was French, his father is French, and therefore, he is French himself." Félix shook his head. "I shouldn't have mentioned it, because now he expects even more from himself. I don't know if he'll be able to put it from his mind, especially not here. Every competitor knows Jean-Luc Picard very well, after all, this is where he grew up. They will look at your son and see his father, either as a boy or the legend that he is now, and expect greatness. While your boy is capable of this greatness, he will dwell on what the others expect, and that will cripple him. I don't know if he will be able to put it from his mind, not today, with this many reminders." The man sighed. "Pity."

"Maybe he'll be able to forget when he competes in the Federation Cup," she said, watching as her son executed a perfect fleche through his opponent's guard for a touch.

"I'd put credits on it," Félix said. "But today, my money is on your older daughter. I can see how calm she is, in absolute control of her mind. She will be able to work through her opponents strategies with clarity and precision. She has none of the psychological issues of her twin." One of the assistant coaches was waving madly in their direction. "Excuse me," he said, and stepped away to go where he was needed.

The day continued and Beverly felt wonderful with the combination of having energy and the ability to breathe deeply, coupled with this sensation of reliving that experience of the fencing tournament on Caldos, but now with total freedom of thought and feeling. How she thought she could spend her entire life hiding her emotions could have been successful escaped her realm of possibility now. While the storm that followed her admittance had been painful, the end result was entirely worth it. Though, she did have to admit that seeing the long results from within that horrific dark storm was incredibly difficult. Certainly, remaining in the eye of that storm was easier, even though it felt hollow without the hardship gone through to earn that calm.

Gracie's tournament was the first to wind down. At first, the little girl was dejected at being eliminated, but cheered up when she learned her finish had been in the top half of the field. This time as she watched her brother and sister continue to compete, she engaged in strategic conversations about fencing with Jean-Luc instead of the banter she'd shared with him on Caldos. At the same time, Beverly noticed that Jean-Luc was careful to stay relatively close to her side, as was Gracie. The doctor suspected a conspiracy on their part.

Both of the elder children fenced well and got themselves into their respective gold medal bouts. The women's foil bout would take place first and an announcement was made across the entire gym so that those who wanted to could gather at the bleachers to watch the finals strips. Andrew came and sat with them to watch his sister, warm-ups thrown over his fencing breeches to keep his muscles loose. Gracie abandoned her father and went to sit with her brother, the opposite as she'd done in Caldos. While Jean-Luc was still an interest of hers, she'd been able to stay with him all day and hadn't seen much of her brother, so she'd immediately capitalized on the opportunity. Beverly hoped Gracie could distract him. This lull in fencing wouldn't be good for him.

When the captain took a seat next to her, his whispered much the same in her ear. Then he said, "I had a long talk with Félix earlier."

"And what did you talk about?"

"Allie. He kept going on and on about how she reminded him of my mother. He said Allie's ability to understand others was an unfair advantage, the same unfair advantage my mother had when she fenced."

Beverly turned away from the bout in front of her and towards Jean-Luc. "Your mother fenced?"

He grinned at her. "She introduced me to the sport. My father never had the time for it. Robert fenced for awhile, then lost interest once he came back with his agricultural degree in hand. He had grapevines to conquer by then." Jean-Luc continued to speak about his mother and brother as the bout continued. Beverly had been waiting for this ever since Jean-Luc had returned from that late night walk with his brother two weeks before. She knew that whatever had occurred between the brothers that night had bothered Jean-Luc deeply, to a point where he was most vulnerable and afraid to even speak about it. She recognized that his choice in speaking about it now gave him some degree of protection, as the conversation couldn't get very deep with this many people around them.

With cautiously chosen words, he explained the bond he and his mother shared, about her interest in history and astronomy, and how he had been born when a comet had been overhead, and how he'd realized Gracie had been born when his mother's favorite comet had been in the Earth's night sky. In a stark whisper, as they watched their elder daughter's close foil match, he retold the story of when he'd left home for good. Right at the end of it, he quickly changed the subject and brought everything right back to the present and focused on Allie, as her bout had reached fourteen to fourteen. La belle.

Beverly's mind reeled with all the information that had just poured from her husband, grateful that he'd finally shared, and frustrated that he'd done so in a situation where she couldn't follow up on it like she wanted. Pushing that frustration to the back of her mind, she concentrated on her daughter's bout.

The two opponents saluted one another, their director, and then the audience, which broke out into cheers at the beauty of the contest between these two fencers. They chanted the last names of the fencer they supported. Jean-Luc seemed startled at hearing his own surname chanted. "Picard! Picard!" and those shouts were countered with "Laurent! Laurent!"

Then the crowd immediately hushed when the director raised his hands to indicate the fencers to get ready. "En guarde," he commanded. "Prêt?" he said, asking them if they were ready. When both fencers said nothing, he brought his hands down. "Allez," he said, the signal to start fencing.

The moment the word left the director's mouth, Allie launched into the same attack she had used on Caldos, the first time in this bout she'd decided to employ it. And the same as it had done on Caldos, it worked perfectly. Touch right. Bout to Picard, fifteen-fourteen. As the crowd erupted into applause, the fencers removed their masks, saluted, and shook hands. Both of them were grinning, it had been a bout that could have gone either way, and each girl recognized that fact. Andrew and Gracie ran down the steps and nearly bowled Allie over with hugs, Andrew even lifting her up until she smacked him and made him put her down. Once the din had died down a bit, the announcement was made for the men's epee gold medal bout and again, the audience drew together again to watch another close match.

It started out slowly, each fencer feeling out the defenses of the other. Andrew took an early lead, then his opponent adjusted his game and started to gain on him. Andrew made a counter-adjustment and kept a lead of two touches. Then again, another shift occurred and first he gained one, then two touches on Andrew. Tie score. Another action, another single light for Andrew's opponent and he'd lost the lead. Chants from the crowd began in earnest, some for Durand, Andrew's opponent and his comeback, others for Andrew and trying to get him to regain the lead. "Picard!" they shouted.

Andrew had taken a step away from the en guarde line, talking a brief walk down the strip and back, removing his mask, adjusting a strap, attempting to regain his composure. When Beverly finally manage to catch a glimpse of his face before he put his mask back on, he looked absolutely stricken.

"Oh no," Allie said. Apparently, she had seen the same thing. All of her brother's pressures had come back at one of the worst possible moments. "Oh no."

The chanting had reminded him not only that he was Captain Picard's son, but that his twin sister had just won the gold in minutes before. And since he was her twin, he felt he would be expected to do the same. "No," Beverly breathed. "Not now."

As they all watched, Andrew came as close to falling apart as possible. Another quick action, another touch for Durand. Now Durand led twelve to ten. Finally, Andrew was able to make an adjustment to his own fencing and stop Durand from opening the gap further. But Durand had changed his strategy as well and knew that Andrew could catch up if he allowed any single points. Epee, unlike foil, held the possibility of a double touch, one for each fencer, if the tips managed to depress within forty milliseconds of one another. Durand took advantage of this scoring method, playing a long distance away from Andrew, running the clock down and making Andrew initiate attacks. With forty-five seconds left of the last period, time was on Durand's side. If it ran out and he still had the lead, the bout would be his. Each time Andrew attacked, Durand doubled-out. The score advanced to thirteen-eleven, then fourteen-twelve.

"He can't afford another double touch," Allie said.

"No, he can't," said Jean-Luc.

As the director brought the fencers back to the en guarde line, Andrew asked for the time. "Ten seconds remaining," came the answer. "En guarde. Prêt? Allez."

Instantly, Durand was retreating towards his end of the strip. Andrew chased him down and Durand kept himself just out of Andrew's reach, daring him to attack. And Andrew had to attack or he would lose the bout on time. Yet if he allowed a double touch, he would also lose the bout, which Durand knew. Andrew would have to be cautious and had barely any time to set a trap. Finally, Durand made a mistake and stayed within Andrew's lunging distance half a second too long and Andrew hit him with well-placed flick to the wrist.

Except Durand had caught his mistake and leaned forward into the hit, managing to land his tip on the bottom of Andrew's forearm.

Double touch. Bout to Durand. Fifteen-thirteen. The competitors saluted and shook hands, then walked to the ends the strip. Andrew squatted at his end, mask and epee still in hand, the disappointment in himself evident on his face. Beverly wanted to go to him, but found herself reluctant at the same time. What could a mother say or do to help? She glanced at Jean-Luc and saw the same thoughts reflected in his own eyes, unsure of what to say to him to help him recover. It was Allie who immediately stood and went down to him, squatting in front of him and whispering to him.

Andrew didn't even make eye contact with her at first, causing Allie to reach out with her hands, and pull his face up to look at her. A series of nods followed as she spoke, then Andrew's cloud of shame began to lift until again, his gray eyes were bright. Then she got him laughing and they walked off the strip together, with her giving him a well placed nudge to the ribs for taking everything so seriously.

They all walked home together slowly, wiped out from the day's events. As they neared the house, Allie moved up to walk beside Jean-Luc, keeping him outside as her brother and sister trooped inside for much needed showers, food, and rest. Beverly paused before she went in, wanting to know what Allie was going to speak with him about. She had a feeling it would be regarding her decision, as she'd told her mother the day before, unsure of how to break it to her father and seeking some guidance.

"Papa," she started, sitting on the edge of the porch. "I've been offered a place at school in Paris for winter term and I've accepted. So I'm not going to be coming with Andrew when he goes back to the _Enterprise_ after the Federation Cup. I'm going to stay here instead and live here while I go to school. I've already spoken with Robert and Marie about it, and they've agreed." She paused and studied the captain.

Jean-Luc looked as stricken as his son had not an hour before.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Once Jean-Luc Picard's brain registered that he hadn't said a word in over a minute, he forced himself to say something to his daughter. "You decided." It wasn't exactly a precise statement. Instead, it covered the entire extent of the thoughts he was having, that not only had she decided on a school, but she had decided what she truly wanted to do with her life. He'd been expecting this sort of decision for almost four weeks running, but the expectation did nothing to stop his slight feeling of disappointment. Yet, he couldn't figure out what the source of his disappointment was.

"You're disappointed," Allie said.

He frowned. "No. I'm not. I mean, not exactly." Annoyance got to him and he found himself standing up and pacing in the small front yard. "I shouldn't be disappointed at all, you're staying here, and you'll be joining a tradition that I could never join myself because my heart wasn't in it. And I'm not disappointed that you don't want to follow me into Starfleet, that isn't it either."

"Are you sure? Because you sound an awful lot like you're trying to convince yourself of that fact, and not me." Allie leaned against one of the porch's supports. "Are you trying to say that there's nothing in you that would have wanted me to travel through the stars like you do?"

He stopped his pacing and turned to face her again. "Of course there's something, that's part of human nature, to want to have your children follow you in what you do. But it's a very small part of me that would want that, one that's overwhelmingly silenced by the part that wants you to be happy."

Allie stood up, leaving her bag of fencing gear on the wooden planks of the porch. "Come on, I need to go see that colt and make sure he's behaving."

"Are you telling me you need some time alone?" Maybe his admitting that he was slightly disappointed that she was staying on the vineyard had driven her a bit away from him, as his father had done to him. And all this time, he'd been afraid of estrangement from his son and hadn't entertained the thought at all that he would do that to his daughter.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not my brother. If I wanted you to leave me alone, I'd tell you. Right now, I'm telling you to walk with me to the damn barn because I need to go check on him while I'm remembering or I'll forget again and not remember until I've gotten into bed."

"Oh." Now he felt like an idiot. Amazing, how both girls possessed that ability to do that to him.

Allie smirked. "Oh," she said, teasing him, then linking her arm through his and starting her walk down to the barn.

For a few minutes, they walked in silence as he attempted to sort out what the cause of his disappointment was. Yet he was reluctant to even think about it, as he realized he hadn't much time with Allie left, at least not these impromptu discussions, these moments where he saw her depth of understanding. He would miss this. He glanced over at her, not having to look down very far at all, maybe an inch, the same as with her mother. Yes, he would miss this.

She glanced back at him. "You figured it out, didn't you," she said.

He nodded. "I'm disappointed that you're staying because I'll miss you."

Allie smiled at him. "Do you realize that ten months ago, you would never have admitted to something like that out loud? And if you did, it would have required three days of endless poking and prodding into your emotional walls to get you to say so?"

"I've learned it's easier to endure admitting it straight away rather than endure your ceaseless prodding."

Her laugher made him smile himself, even as she nudged him in the ribs. "You're awful," she said.

"I've learned from the best," he said, giving her a significant look.

"I think you were saying things like that long before you met _me_," she said.

It was true, he had. But her statement had hit exactly the problem, he'd only met her ten months ago, and already she would be leaving. He hadn't had that long with her at all. He knew a frown had settled onto his face, a stark contrast to the smile he'd had only seconds before.

"It's not like you won't see me again," she said, pushing open the heavy wooden door of the barn. Inside, the horses stamped around and whinnied at her entrance.

"I know. You'll be here on Earth and we're here more often than one would think. Or at least within a runabout distance if we were to take time off. And this is what you're meant to do and what will make you happy. I can learn to live with it. I just wish there had been more time." With the realization of what was causing his feeling of disappointment, the disappointment drifted away, replaced by that profound sense of loss he'd first experienced when he found out who this young woman was. Now it was back again, because it seemed just as quickly as she'd become a part of his life, she would be leaving it. Again, he knew. _I should have stayed_. A sigh rose up and out of him, unbidden.

"Coeur qui soupire n'a pas ce qu'il désire," Allie said in reply as she gave the colt one last pat on the head and climbed off the stall door.

He shook his head. "What my heart desires cannot be given because it is much too late."

"You could always ask Wesley to implement some of his theories on time travel," she replied. "Something could be done, then."

The captain continued to shake his head. "No. Then it wouldn't feel right, it would feel empty, hollow, as if something was somehow just a little bit off. You can't just go back and fix your mistakes like that, even if you could manage the time travel part of it. Things we've done in the past make who we are today. I've learned that lesson the hard way." He was startled to find himself admitting that he had, through Q's intervention, learned exactly that lesson.

"By all means, tell me that story," she said.

"When you're older," he said.

Allie playfully smacked him on the upper arm. "That has to be one of the worst lines ever," she said. "Now I _know_ this has to be a good story and I'm not letting you weasel out of telling it, either."

"Fine." He waited for her to shut the barn door and then they slowly walked back towards the house. "It all started when I found myself in the afterlife and Q was there."

Allie pulled on his arm and drew him to a stop. "Let me get this straight. Q is God?"

"No! No. Not at all. That's exactly the though I had and I informed him that I refused to believe that the universe is so poorly designed."

"How'd he take it?"

"He threatened to smote me."

She snorted. "At least he had the terminology correct."

Picard crossed his arms and glared at her. "Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Allie bit her bottom lip in an effort to stop the laughter. "Sorry," she said, then burst into another set of giggles. She waved her hand. "Really. Go ahead."

Ignoring his irritation that Q could continue to provide everyone in his life such great entertainment at his expense, the captain relayed the story of his trip back into time, courtesy of Q. "And when I got back to the present," he finished. "I found myself posted on the _Enterprise_ as a lieutenant junior grade assigned to the astrometrics department. It had to be one of the most disconcerting moments of my life to find myself on _my_ ship as a junior officer with no hope of advancement."

"So you wouldn't go back and change what happened between you and Mom then, either?"

"No. As much as I might wish I had stayed, to go back and do such a thing would only lead to terrible consequences now. Partly because we would know this reality and that other reality, the new one that would be created, would feel fake, no matter how long we lived in it."

"And yet you still beat yourself up over it." She gave a long martyred sigh. "Picards."

He stopped short. "You're one yourself, you know."

"I know," she said. "And I would've said 'tell me about it' except I also know you'd launch into some long boring talk about the Picard who first discovered the novel concept of cleaning the dirt from between their toes."

The captain didn't acknowledge the verbal dig. "Where did you pick up that saying, the one you said in the barn?" he asked. "Exactly how much have you been speaking about with my brother?"

"More than you," she said, resuming her walk towards the house and leaving him in the side yard.

He'd meant to follow her, but found he wasn't moving to the house, nor could he convince himself to do so. Instead, he turned and headed back towards the knoll, over it and ended up back at the family plot. The sun had began its slow journey below the horizon again, tickling the clouds on its way down and making them blush. He sat down at the bottom of the low stone wall, leaning his body against it, stretching his legs out in front of him. If his mother were still alive, he was certain he would be talking to her right now, seeking out her advice and guidance. He was also certain that had his mother been alive through most of his adult life, he would not have made the choice to leave Beverly. She would've made him march straight back at the first hint she got of it. And then he wouldn't feel as empty as he did right now, watching as his oldest daughter floated out of his life again, just when she'd barely entered it.

Movement along the edge of his vision caused him to look up and he saw someone approaching, squinting against the rays of the setting sun. A grin came to his face as he recognized her, the wonderful woman who had agreed to be his wife. Her expression was the one he was most familiar with—that slightly bemused look, as if she knew something cosmically funny that she hadn't yet deemed to share with everyone else. He loved that particular expression. Finally, she reached where he sat, and he patted the ground next to him.

She arched an eyebrow. "If I sit down, you're going to have to help me get back up. And you'll have to do it with a straight face."

"I will be the perfect gentleman."

"Right," she said, then slowly lowered herself onto the grass next to him along the stone wall, stretching out her legs next to his. "What kind of macabre thoughts are you having sitting next to this old graveyard?" she asked. "Allie's news made you that depressed?"

"Should you even be out walking around?" he asked. The tournament today had managed to keep him entirely distracted from the information he'd gotten from Beverly this morning about the baby's impending birth. All this energy she hadn't had before, those odd contractions she insisted weren't real ones, and how her belly had moved lower, that last realization had really concerned him.

"Don't change the subject," she said. "I'm a doctor. I'm fine. Honestly, Jean-Luc, women have been doing this for—"

"—thousands of years," he finished with her, sharing the laugh. _That_ lecture he'd already gotten repeatedly and he didn't particularly want to hear it again. He couldn't help it, he was damned certain it had to be an instinctual behavior to make sure she and their unborn child were okay.

She only glared at him in jest for a moment, then rested her head on his shoulder and took one of his hands in both of hers. This was a routine as well. She was waiting on him to decide to talk about whatever was bothering him. He could feel every inch of his body where hers was in contact with his, warm and familiar. It was yet another thing he couldn't believe he'd allowed out of his life for so long, had even chosen to have it be, because now he couldn't imagine life without her by his side. Even when she was angry with him, not that he was going to tell her that, he wouldn't have it any other way. And to think that in Q's future, he'd chosen that route yet again, even as he wished he could go back and fix the past so that he hadn't left and she would've been there almost always.

"I don't want to make you feel guilty," he said, looking out towards the vines, unwilling to look at her, almost afraid to.

"You're protecting me again."

"Well...yes."

"Stop."

He decided to tell her, but he still wouldn't look at her as he did. "I had so little time with her and she's leaving already. But this isn't about what you—"

"Are you certain?" she asked before he could finish. "Is this about what I chose?" More questions seemed to be hovering just behind the ones she'd asked, but her voice caught in a web of vulnerability and she fell silent.

Finally, he turned and looked at her, saw the hurt and anger he hadn't wanted to see finding its way to her eyes. "No," he said. "It's about what I chose." The words came to him first in French and that's what he whispered as he repeated the words he'd written to her seventeen years ago when he had left into the snow-driven night. "When the darkness fell before me, remember that you showed me to the path of forgiveness and redemption. No regrets should befall you. And if you find the way ahead seems endless, that the day is longer than any that has already passed before you, please remember me. Nous sommes deux âmes, un coeur."

"I know those words," Beverly said. "Both in Standard and in French."

The captain nodded. "Even then, I suppose I was trying to protect you from what I thought you needed protection. In doing so, I changed the courses of our lives to something vastly different from what it could have been. It wasn't my choice to make, at least not alone, but I did it anyway. An extension, perhaps, of how I command a starship, that in the end, it's my responsibility alone, not to be shared with any other." He looked away from her again, in the direction of the house, where lights had started to come on as the night continued to creep over the day. "I'm not very good at sharing my life."

"You're better than you were."

Again, he shook his head. "Yes, but if I had been a better man, I would have started much sooner than I did, and we would all be much further ahead."

Beverly glanced over her shoulder at the stone wall, then back to him. "You think that if your mother had been alive, or was still alive, that things would be different, don't you?"

"Yes."

"It would, but not the way you think it would be."

A frown pulled at his face. "What do you mean?"

"I think it would have driven you and your mother apart, because you wouldn't have mentioned it to her, any of it. I'm sure you would've told her about Jack, and about the _Stargazer_, but you would've been very careful not to mention me. Why? Because you would know your mother would see straight through you and know exactly how you felt, and still, you wouldn't have been able to deal with that. You would have stayed away from home for longer and longer periods of time and felt even more guilty than you actually did in all those years."

"How can you be so sure?"

She inclined her head toward the house. "Just look at what's happened between you and your brother. That should be all the proof you need."

"That has nothing to do with this," he said. "What's going on between Robert and myself has been happening since childhood—"

"Not this," she said, interrupting him. "Robert asked you to remember what happened you last night here for a reason and it has nothing to do with your choosing to join Starfleet, no matter how certain you are that it does. You and he had settled that years ago, the last time you were here. While both of you are champions at holding grudges, once you set them aside, they are fully set aside. He wants you to remember how close you were to your mother for a reason."

"Which would be?" He was beginning to suspect Beverly had also been speaking with Robert. It seemed everyone had except him.

"I don't know, I haven't asked him. It's not my place. You should—" she stopped short and brought a hand to her abdomen.

Panic grabbed him in a full-out tackle and he jumped up to his feet. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

"Calm _down_," she said.

He knelt beside her. "I told you that you shouldn't be out here walking about. Now you've gone—"

"And shut _up_." She took his hand and placed it where she had put hers seconds before.

He blinked. Her belly felt as stony and hard as the rock wall she leaned against. Then as quickly as it had happened, he felt her abdominal wall return its normal pliability. But he couldn't feel any kicking or punching from their son. "Is he okay? Are you okay?"

When she smiled, it was that bemused expression again. "We're both fine. That's the contraction you overhead me telling our daughter about. It doesn't hurt, you just feel the pressure of it. It can, however, catch you a bit off guard."

"He's not as active as he was," he said, allowing the worry to slide into his voice.

She nodded. "That's normal. As I told you, he's moved down in preparation to be born, so he hasn't got as much wiggle room as he used to. Which is fantastic for _me_ because I can breathe properly again. The downside is that he's now firmly ensconced against my bladder and I can't seem to go more than half an hour without having to take a side trip to the bathroom."

He laughed. "That explains why you kept ducking into the ladies room every twenty minutes today."

Beverly glared at him and then abruptly said, "Help me up."

"Why?" he asked, even as stood and did as she asked.

"So I can storm away in a huff because of your insensitivity." But the warmth in her eyes betrayed her true feelings. "Well, I couldn't even do that now. Waddling away in a huff isn't nearly as effective as stalking away."

Shouting—much of it in the form of swearing—coming from the winery made them both turn towards the ruckus. After exchanging a quick glance, they strode quickly down the hill and cautiously looked through one of the doors of the old wooden building. Inside, they found Robert, Rene, and Andrew prying at one of the couplings on the pipe leading from one of the smaller wine presses to one of the sub-fermenters. Andrew, face flushed with exertion, gave one last pull, then let his arms drop with a jerk and handed the wrench over to his uncle. "Your turn again," he said. "I don't see how you can be certain there's a clog in it."

With a scowl, Robert clamped the wrench onto the coupling and set about loosening it. "The clog is obvious if you look at the flow rate of the liquid from the pressed grapes," Robert said through gritted teeth.

Andrew's face drew into his look of annoyance as he glanced over at the tank's flow rate measure. "Except that you shut it off so we could fix it."

"You'll just have to take my word for it then, won't you?" Robert grunted, then dropped the wrench to the concrete floor, the resulting clang causing them all to jump.

Andrew turned to Rene. "Your turn," he said.

"I'm half your size," Rene said, holding up his hands.

"It's not about size or strength," said Andrew, leaning over to pick up the wrench, then handing it to his younger cousin. "It's about learning how to swear."

"Not while I'm within earshot he won't," came Marie's voice from just behind Beverly and Jean-Luc. "It's getting late. You two boys need to come inside and start thinking about sleeping." Marie gave the doctor a significant look. "And you should be inside and resting as well."

Beverly rolled her eyes. "Oh, for Pete's sake. _I'm_ the doctor around here, you know. I think I'm the one with the most valid opinion on what I should and should not be doing."

Robert picked up a rag and wiped the grease off his fingers. "Sometimes, Marie and validity have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. She'll just pretend she hasn't heard you and insist on you doing what she suggests anyway. So I suggest you just go along with it, it makes life much easier." He winked at his son, who stood gaping at his father's willingness to make that comment aloud.

The captain desperately tried to keep his face straight, as he was within arm's reach of both women.

"Not one word from you, Jean-Luc Picard," Beverly hissed in his ear.

Apparently, he hadn't been as successful as he hoped. "Robert, how about I take over in helping you so the boys can go inside," Picard said.

"A fine idea," Robert said, taking pity on his younger brother's plight. He smiled at the two women. "I'll see you both at the house."

Jean-Luc watched Andrew closely as the boy made his way out of the winery, looking at the edges of the boy's eyes and the slightest movements of his face. He knew he'd suffered two losses today, one in his falling apart during his final, and the other in finding out that his twin sister wouldn't be returning with him to the _Enterprise_ after the Federation Cup. He saw the deep emotion in the periphery of the boy's eyes, but Andrew was struggling with control while walking among everyone else, so Picard chose to leave him alone for the time being. He would have to speak with him, he was certain, but it didn't have to be right then.

"He's going to have a very hard time," Robert said, taking up the wrench once again. "I think Allie is the one who keeps him even-keeled, as least as much as he's able. I've always wondered what it's like to be a twin."

The captain walked over to study the joints of the pipe that connected the press and the fermenter. "I always thanked the powers that be that you weren't a twin," he said to his brother.

Robert strained at moving the coupling. "I always wondered what it would've been like if I had gotten a younger sister instead of a younger brother." Then the older man stopped for a moment to glance at the captain. "But I always decided that you'd probably be just as awful." Then he went back to moving the coupling, not waiting to see Jean-Luc's reaction.

"I think Père would have been a bit of a different man," Picard said after a brief moment of being taken aback by the comment. "There's something about daughters, how beguiling they really are, so very different than sons. They have an amazing talent at catching you off guard, sending you tilting off in directions you never would have considered, and you can't let yourself believe for a moment that you can hide anything from them." He nodded, whether to himself or his brother, he wasn't sure. "He would have been very different. We all would have. You'll see for yourself, with Allie staying here."

Robert lurched backwards as the coupling gave way. "She told you, then." He finished removing the coupling and brought down the pipe causing so much trouble. A flashlight illuminating the inside, the tall vintner began to pull out the mess of stems and leaves causing the blockage.

"I wish you had one of your own," the captain said, handing a bucket for the refuse to Robert.

"I'll just borrow yours for awhile," Robert replied, studying the inside of the pipe one last time. Then he stood and reattached the pipe and began tightening the coupling again. "Though Marie always wanted a daughter."

"I did overhear Andrew offer to hand over one of his sisters."

Robert tapped the pipe with a wrench a couple times to test the soundness. Jean-Luc caught his brother's nod and turned on the machine again. Robert studied the readings for a moment, gave another nod, and went to put away the wrench. "He's you all over again," he said, coming back into the main room from the work bench's area.

The captain shut off the lighting as he followed his brother out of the winery. "He's himself, Robert. He isn't me or anyone else."

Robert secured the heavy wooden door behind them as they stepped into the vineyard's night. "Whatever you think I meant, that isn't what I meant. He's you, he's me, he's our father. He's every moment of silence any of us have had with one another and every moment where we didn't say what we should have."

"I don't want to do this right now." It wasn't the time, they had one more day, then this conversation could happen, then they could have this fight.

"He's very sensitive, isn't he? Much like you were, much like our mother was. Looking up at the stars with a sense of wonder that touched the very soul, as our father and I saw our vines. And like all—"

"The harvest isn't over, Robert. All the grapes aren't in. In case you've lost your ability to see, there are still bunches hanging from the vines." He had to stop this before he found himself responding to his brother's remarks, he even looked in the direction of the vineyard to illustrate his point and make his brother see.

Robert followed his brother's gaze. "Tomorrow is the end of the harvest and we will all be celebrating, along with the rest of the town," he said, turning back to study his brother. "This needs to be settled now so that when we celebrate, we'll be celebratingand not biding our time, waiting for the coming storm."

The captain said nothing, to agree or disagree would be pointless, because it had already started.

"Ah, I see that you agree with me," said Robert. "So I saw in your boy tonight everything I saw in you, from that drive to be the best at everything to that want of iron-clad control over emotions so that no one knows what you really think and feel. And then I saw how his twin—"

"My son has nothing to do with this," Picard said, letting the anger ride out on his baritone.

"_Bon sang ne saurait mentir_, Jean-Luc," Robert replied.

The captain scowled. _Good blood cannot lie_. "About what?"

"About Picard men speaking when they shouldn't and remaining silent when they should be shouting at the tops of their lungs." While he'd spoken, the tall man had let his eyes wander off towards the horizon, where the final shafts of light had now taken refuge for the night. Then he turned back to the captain. "A few weeks ago, I asked you to remember something. What did you remember?"

The fight within him was beaten down by curiosity about what his brother was driving at to point out. So Jean-Luc told his brother his version of the story, of when he'd gotten out of the house and found their mother stargazing. "And I remember her picking me up, and next I recall is waking up the next morning. Père never spoke of it to me. What about it makes you want me to remember?"

"Our father loved that you and Maman had this hobby together. He was very happy that one of us turned out to be more like her. I thought you should know that."

Picard felt like he needed to walk, somewhere, anywhere but remain standing next to his brother, who seemed to be insisting on sharing platitudes about how their father really felt about him. "I don't want to hear it."

"Don't you?" Robert asked, following him.

"Not from you, I don't."

"You wouldn't hear it from our father when he was alive."

The captain whipped around. "It's easy not to hear something that was never said." There his brother went, immediately hurling spears into the most vulnerable areas.

"You left before he could say it," Robert said.

"He had twenty-two years in which to say it before I actually left."

Silence, like the one Robert had spoken of earlier, stepped between them on the night's breeze that whispered through the vineyard. The brothers stood in the valley between the winery and the house, hidden from the view of anyone who would look from either building.

"No," Robert said. "He only had one day. Maman had always said it for him. Like I said, Andrew is our father, he is me, his is you, he is himself. He didn't know how to even begin to say aloud everything he felt inside. Go ahead, deny that you haven't wrestled with the same difficulties. Go ahead, tell me that Beverly hasn't helped you with opening up, that it's been her and your daughters who have broken through your walls."

There wasn't anything he could say, both speaking and remaining silent rendered the same answer—that Robert was exactly right.

Robert continued. "I wanted you to remember because I saw and heard things that you didn't. I've known that Père never actually objected to you joining Starfleet, at least not for the reasons you think, and the ones he told you that night that you left. He said all of that because it was anger and that made it easy to say."

"Easy to say?" Tension drew up the captain tightly, pulling his shoulders together, curling his fingers into fists at his sides. "I cannot believe that the things he said were easy to say."

"They were compared to the truth. How is a father supposed to tell his son that he loves him, when the last time he said it aloud was when the boy was four years old and had just been brought inside the house, asleep in his mother's arms? Guilt, Jean-Luc, it's all about guilt with us all. He had two disconnecting thoughts on your joining Starfleet—that you were taking after Maman and he loved seeing that, while at the same time, you reminded him of the dreams he'd caused our mother to give up in order to stay with him."

Picard couldn't detect any malice in his brother's tone, nothing but the slight irritation at life that Robert always carried in his eyes, accompanied by a rarely seen openness. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you. Maman had been part of a group of historical astronomers designated to go out on Starfleet ships. She decided not to go in order to marry our father. He always thought he'd taken her dreams away from her, but she saw it differently. Maman was unique, because she could see both the past and the present, at least, that's how she explained it to me. When she died, you were a walking reminder of the guilt he felt that she never got to attain her dreams."

Suddenly, the entire argument that night made sense. Why his father had gone from disapproval to outright forbidding him to join Starfleet. Why his father had removed all those memories of his mother that involved the stars in any way. "That's why he burned her notes."

"I should have said something that night, before you left, maybe even when our father couldn't seem to make himself say anything else. When he couldn't say what had to be said, I should have said that I understood." Robert had crossed his arms and taken to studying the grass beneath their feet.

Jean-Luc's fingers tingled with the shock and the fear that raced through him at the possibility of his brother understanding him as their mother had. "That you understood?" he repeated.

Robert looked up at the stars starting to wink into existence in the black sky. "That you were meant to be out there and not down here. I think it would have helped our father actually have said something, rather than just stand there saying nothing and letting you walk out and not come back. We're all crippled." His eyes returned to the earth and finally studied his brother. "I was angry at you because I was angry at myself. If I hadn't abandoned my duties as the elder brother and had said something that night, I don't think you would have abandoned your family as you did."

The fear bolted away from the captain, chased down by the flashing anger that followed. "Robert, I didn't even know about them until ten months ago. What would you have had me do?"

"You should have stayed that night."

The accusation struck clear, piercing his defenses with ease because it was exactly what he felt in his own heart and what he carried with him in his own burden of guilt. And it wasn't something he would allow himself to hear his brother say aloud. "This conversation is over," he said, then turned and walked blindly, just wanting to get away from his brother and his guilt.

"Run away, Jean-Luc, you seem right good at it," came the comment from his brother, trailing just behind him.

This time the captain stopped and turned on his heel all at once, making Robert bump into him. The two brothers glared at one another. "I will not have you voicing my own guilty conscience aloud at me," Jean-Luc said. "There's nothing you can say about the choices I've made that I haven't told myself a hundred times over. What's done is done and cannot be changed. All we can do is live with what we have now." Then he waited for Robert's response, waited for a yell, or even a fist.

Instead, Robert stepped back. "The ashes, he mixed them in the soil of the new vines he planted that year. He thought they were Maman's notes, the papers he burned."

"He thought?" Already, Jean-Luc's mind was having trouble comprehending his brother so quickly backing down, changing the subject to something else, as if his younger brother's response had satisfied him and there was nothing left to say on that subject.

"I replaced them with school notebook of my own. He never opened the book, so he never knew that what he burned weren't Maman's notes. I kept them."

"You kept them." His ability to reason had been so reduced that he could only repeat fragments of his brother's statements.

"I did. Tonight, I gave the notes to your son and told him about how his four-year-old father snuck out of the house under the watchful eye of his grandfather and first saw studied the stars with his grandmother. I told him that what he wanted to do was as much as Picard tradition as what I have chosen to do." Robert said the words as he watched his vines tremble in the wind.

"Why?" Jean-Luc asked.

"I told you," Robert said, his blue eyes first looking up to the sky, then back down to settle on his brother's gray ones. "I understand."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Beverly Picard's relationship with this time of the day had so long been on the skids that she'd forgotten how much she liked it when she didn't have an overwhelming urge to crawl back under her covers. The light peering in through the curtains was shy, tinted by only the slightest rosy hue of dawn. Next to her, her husband slept on, not noticing that she'd woken up without complaint and had not automatically buried her head beneath her pillow. The urge to trace the lines of his face went through her, making her fingers itch, but she chose to leave him alone. He needed the sleep. The conversation he'd had with Robert the night before had drained both brothers and at the same time, it had left them with a renewed relationship finally supported by an understanding they had lacked since childhood.

It had taken them over fifty years to come to this accord. Such stubborn men, entirely Picards, frustrating and charming all at once. But the understanding they'd finally come to last night had created a different opportunity for this newer generation of Picard males, that they would be open where their fathers had been closed, speaking where their fathers had been silent. Robert's gift to Andrew last night had spoken volumes and it had nothing much to do with the physical notebook he'd given the boy. Instead, it had been the words he'd spoken, words of acceptance and pride in another Picard's decision to head into the stars that had been the most precious gift.

It was a gift just as precious to Jean-Luc and one never given too late. When he'd returned back to the house, his eyes had held a particular comfort in who he was, a comfort she'd never quite seen in him before. He'd fallen asleep in their bed in the midst of their talk about what had gone on between the brothers and she had left him alone, leaving him to rest his weary emotions. After all, she knew what would be coming the following day.

Beverly stole out of the bed, ducking into the bathroom to find her robe and go about her morning ablutions. She had far too much energy pulsing through her to go back to sleep, even if the chronometer told her it wasn't yet five in the morning. Robert had announced that the harvesting—the tiny bit that remained—wasn't to begin until eight that morning. She left the bedroom fully dressed, a tricorder secreted away into a pocket so she could continue her scans throughout the day. She'd kept one on her ever since coming to the realization yesterday of having all the Howard signs of a baby being born within thirty-six hours.

Only, Nana wouldn't be around this time. This boy would be the first child of hers born without having his great-grandmother be a part of his life. He would only know her from the stories and memories of others, coupled with old photographs in the family albums. She wished he could have something more, but it couldn't be. Once she was out in the hallway, she pulled the tricorder from her pocket and ran another scan—twenty-three more hours until labor would start, as long as everything continued normally. And if this boy proceeded like his siblings, the labor would last around five hours, seven at the most and that had only been with her twins. Plenty of time to get to the medical facility, check in, get settled, start on the anesthetic. Each of the other children had been born according to schedule, so she saw no reason to think otherwise of this one. There would be no worries or concerns for the entire festival, though she would have to whisper a word to Marie to make sure transport was arranged. Already, she had notified the medical facility in the town center and the doctors would be on call just in case.

Beverly slipped the tricorder away again and found her way down the stairs. Behind her, the nails of a large dog's paws clicked on the wooden flooring of the stairs. Coming to a stop beside her, Conal's nose shoving its way into her hand, tail wagging. "Good morning," she said, bending as far as she was able in order to scratch the top of his head.

His tail thumped in reply, then he pressed his muzzle against her abdomen and held it there. When he pulled away, he studied her with his quizzical canine eyes that always seemed to hold a certain intelligence.

"You feel it too?" she asked him, scratching him behind the ear. When she headed out the door, the large wolfhound stayed right on her heels.

Outside, the world was quiet, suspended in that moment between night and day, waiting for one to end and the other to begin. The long rows of vines already seemed bare, the vines springing up towards the sky, having given up their fruit for the year. Between the rows, the mist walked through on its wispy legs, getting in its last journey before the sun rose and burned it away until night fell again. The doctor recognized the source of her energy that morning—impatienceAs the harvest wound down to its natural end, she found herself impatient for her child to be born, especially with the advent of the signs of his impending arrival. This dawn was a bookend to when they had first arrived here four weeks ago, with Jean-Luc arising so early that first morning and waking them all up, as excited as a little boy on Christmas morning. And like December mornings in Earth's northern hemisphere, the time before dawn that morning brought a chill. For the first time since Beverly had arrived, she felt the crispness of winter in the air.

The doctor wandered into the barn, finding herself drawn to the things that drew her elder daughter's interest. Even the horses were quiet this morning, content to just whicker a bit in their stalls at her entry. Only the little colt was excitable, bounding up to the bars of the stall and forcing his little head through the opening to get her attention. Laughing, she gave it, giving him a good rub on his white-blazed muzzle.

"The other horses are only that nice to you if you give them apples or a sugar cube," came quiet male voice from the second floor.

Beverly smiled. She recognized the voice. So much like Jean-Luc's, gentle and reassuring in its timbre, but tempered with youth in her son. Looking up, she found him sitting on the edge of the floorboards, feet dangling, lopsided grin on his face. The night's cold air had drawn a flush to his cheeks, bringing out the gray of his eyes. "Good morning," she said. "What are you doing up?"

"I should be asking you the same thing," he replied. "Is everyone else up, too?"

"No. It's just you and me."

"Why would the two people in the family who hate mornings the most be up this early?" Andrew wondered aloud, running his fingers through his short-cropped hair.

"What _are_ you doing up?" she asked again.

He gave her a slight shrug and looked somewhat meek as he cast a quick glance in the direction of one of the skylights. "Oh...just..."

"Stargazing?" she supplied as he trailed off.

"No, actually, not stars," he said, getting to his feet. "A comet. I read some of those notes that Robert gave me and when I saw that one would be visible tonight, I had to see it. So I did. It's still in range and since the sun isn't above the horizon yet, it's still visible. Come up and see it."

Beverly found the stairs and cautiously stepped up to the second floor, greeted enthusiastically by her son as he ushered her towards the telescope setup underneath the open skylight. He took a quick look through the eyepiece, then motioned her to look for herself. Through the long lens, she saw the comet arcing across the gray sky only for a few minutes, then the first peek of the sun over the horizon erased the comet from view. "It's gone now," she said.

"That's why I rushed you," he replied. "I knew the sun was about to rise. The whole thing was only visible for about an hour."

"How long have you been awake?"

He furrowed his brow. "Two hours, maybe? Somewhere around there. I thought about waking up Gracie, but decided to let her sleep instead." He packed up the telescope and started towards the stairs, where Conal waited at the bottom.

Beverly followed him. "Why didn't you wake her up?"

"She's way too cheerful in the morning. I didn't think I could take her chatter." Andrew turned and waited as she carefully descended the stairs. "You're going awfully slow."

She stopped and glared at him. "You go ahead and try and navigate down a flight of stairs when you can't see your own feet and see how fast _you_ go," she said.

"If I tried to go down a flight of stairs while blindfolded, and you found out, you might try and kill me yourself. So I think I'll pass."

Her irritation disappeared as she found herself laughing at how right her son was about her hypothetical reaction. The two of them headed back for the house, Andrew putting a supportive arm around her shoulder as they walked. For him, it was practically a hug and Beverly felt a contented warmth spread across her impatience, dampening it somewhat. She could wait a while longer to see her new son, as she had this older son already out here with her, and the connection between them seemed particularly strong that morning. Perhaps it had something to do with them both being up so early, something so foreign to the two of them. Or perhaps her son felt a newfound freedom in gaining the acceptance of his uncle, that he and his father weren't the outcasts of the Picard family they'd been made out to be. Instead, they were just as much Picards as Robert, as Maurice, as Allie. "I've noticed something," she said out loud.

Andrew looked over at her. "What have you noticed? It couldn't be anything around your feet, that's for sure."

She gave him a good elbow to the ribs, which only served to make him smile. "That you and your sister started calling your father 'Papa' instead of 'Dad.' What brought on that change?"

He shrugged, returning his gaze to the house that was growing closer. "Being here, it just felt right to call him that. Gracie already did, and seeing what sort of background our heritage is from here, it just seemed like the right thing to call him now."

"I like it," she said. "I think it suits him better."

He seemed like he was going to reply when the front door of the house banged open and Gracie bolted outside and ran down towards them. "Where have you _been_?" she asked.

Andrew intercepted her and lifted her in his arms before the little girl reached Beverly. "We got up early," he said.

Gracie pushed her upper body away from her brother and held him at arm's length. "I don't believe you."

Andrew rolled his eyes and put his sister back on her feet. "Breakfast," he said.

The little girl pointed in the direction of the house. "That way," she replied, her look telling her brother that she thought he was an idiot for not knowing where breakfast would be.

"That's where I'm headed," Beverly said, taking Gracie's hand and continuing to the house. Once inside, the girl let go and ran for the kitchen, shouting that she'd found them. After rolling his eyes again, this time in a shared look with his mother, Andrew followed her.

Hearing footsteps behind her, the doctor turned to see Jean-Luc exiting Robert's office. "I hope you haven't just put out a missing persons alert," she said.

"Of course not," he said, giving a rueful shake of his head. "I did that an hour ago, when I woke up and your side of the bed was empty. I thought 'oh, she's left me,' then thought better of it and went to see if you'd gone to check on the girls, but no, you weren't there. Then I poked my head in Andrew's room to find him gone and I realized you _had_ run off with a younger man." He continued to shake his head. "Taller, stronger, a full head of hair...how could a woman not leave me for him?"

"Jean-Luc."

He heaved a sigh. "I suppose I'll just have to find myself a much younger woman, that's all."

By this time she was face to face with him, her hands on his shoulders and inching toward his neck. "The one you've got is young enough," she said, her fingers caressing just under his jaw.

"I've got you, have I?" he asked, his eyes finally looking into hers, bright and warm.

It leapt the space between them, that familiar tingle, drawing them closer, her eyes diverting from his to his lips and then back before he closed the distance between them completely. She relaxed into his kiss, the impatience again drawn away by another lovely distraction. He demanded nothing more than she chose to give, and yet that tingle managed to suffuse every inch of her skin and she sought to bring them even closer. How for one moment she could have even entertained the thought of cutting this man out of her life entirely escaped her.

Behind them, the kitchen door swung open as Andrew walked out. "Hey, why don't you come and eat—" he cut himself off with a sound of strangled anguish when he caught sight of them and quickly disappeared back through the door.

Their son's quick exit gave them more time to continue their exploration until the kitchen door swung open yet again and another voice spoke. "Knock it off," Allie said. "Honestly, you two should get a room. But barring that, stop manhandling one another and come eat breakfast. There's work to be done." Then the door shut.

They broke apart from the laughter that surged between them. "She did a much better job of killing the mood," Jean-Luc said. "Though I'm tempted to ignore her as well." His fingers wove their way through her hair and renewed the tingle.

"The harvest," she said, reluctantly withdrawing her hands from behind his head. "And I also don't want this baby arriving any sooner than he is." She gave him a pointed look.

He blinked, obviously taking a second to realized what she was referring to from all her different explanations of what could make the birth arrive either sooner—sex—or later—Vulcan control techniques. "Right," he said, then pursed his lips. "How soon?"

"Around twenty-two more hours."

His face paled.

She grinned at him. "You just concentrate on the harvest today, don't think about anything else."

The captain reached out and placed a gentle hand on her abdomen. "I think it's a bit hard to ignore," he said, the corner of his mouth tweaking upwards just a little, then some more as he left his hand there and their son gave a nice kick. "There you are," he said.

Beverly plucked her husband's hand away from her belly, kissing it before she pushed it against his chest. "You leave him alone, he'll start kicking my bladder and he's been behaving lately." Then her stomach growled loudly.

"Breakfast," Picard said.

"I was heading that way, but you distracted me."

"I did no such thing."

Then they joined the others in the kitchen before they all headed out for the vines. In contrast to four weeks before, the children all knew what to do and grabbed buckets and sécateurs and were off without any additional instructions from Robert. They all moved about their tasks as if they'd spent their entire lives on the vineyard and not just the past month. Allie stopped at the edge of the row and waited on her younger sister. Gracie, on her part, remained at the table in front of the winery, staring at the remaining sécateurs. Slowly, she raised her gray eyes to look up at her uncle.

And just as slowly, Robert looked her straight back in the eye and shook his head.

She glared at him and whirled around in a huff, stalking off to where her sister waited. Allie met her mother's eyes over her sister's head and Beverly saw that Allie was desperately trying to keep a straight face. Then the two girls disappeared into the rows of vines.

"I hope she doesn't stay angry with me," Robert said, stepping closer to where Beverly stood next to Jean-Luc.

"Give her about fifteen minutes and she'll forget about it," the captain said.

Robert frowned. "Are you sure?"

"I've gotten that particular reaction enough times to be fairly certain," he said. "She forgives quickly. At times, it makes her the wisest of us all."

"Yes," said Robert, indicating with his chin for his brother to follow him to help coordinate where the harvest would end in the vineyard. Tradition dictated that the last bunch of the harvest would be cut by the vineyard's owner and that would be when the fête de vendange would officially begin. The two of them had to plan exactly which bunch would be best situated for the crowd that would be gathered to watch at mid-afternoon.

Beverly watched the two brothers stride away. "This is a very big deal, isn't it?" she asked her sister-in-law.

"Yes. La Barre is a small town, so the fête de vendange is huge event for us. All of the chateaux arrange to finish on the same day in order to have the entire town participate in the parade later. Then everyone goes to the field in the middle of the village, for a feast of a meal, dancing, a lot of music, games for the children. It's my favorite time of the year," Marie answered, her smile never waning. "Well, come on. I'm sure there's some harvesting we can do."

The doctor gave up trying to get Marie to let her carry or even move the bucket of grapes, so she took up the clippers and settled into cutting the bunches down from the vines. It felt good, doing this work. It gave her a connection to both her husband and children, becoming a part of their tradition. Of course, her children had just really learned about this part of their background, but it was in their blood. With Allie it had been so easy to see the connection, Gracie not far behind. It wasn't until Robert started to open up that Beverly was able to really understand what the Picard family had been like when the two brothers had been children. And also how much they all lost through their unwillingness to speak openly, or even feel openly. She also saw how this had extended to her son, and how his twin sister had waged a war against it since they were toddlers, piercing through the walls he kept trying to build to protect his sensitive nature.

With the shift in the relationship between the brothers, and even a shift in the elements of Jean-Luc's relationship with his passed father, Andrew would have a different male role model to follow in terms of what healthy emotional control really meant in the course of life.

As the day went on, Gracie's attention to her tasks sputtered and then went out entirely. Soon she was weaving in and out of the rows, alternately teasing one of the workers or one of her relatives, and sometimes managing to find something useful to do. The girl was careful to stay a distance away from her father and uncle lest they put her to real work. She also stayed out of arm's reach of her older sister, lest Allie pin her down and make her help. Most of the time, she distracted Andrew and Rene with her antics. Soon enough, Andrew caught a look from Allie and though a word didn't pass between them, Andrew grabbed Gracie on her next run by him as Allie would have asked.

In the meantime, Robert had come by on the cart and Andrew lift his sister and placed her inside. "She needs something to do," he said to his uncle.

Robert tilted his wide brimmed hat upward, revealing his face as he leaned down to look his niece in the eye. "Is that so?" he asked.

Gracie opened her mouth to protest, then closed it just ask quickly when she saw her siblings glaring at her. Her eyes drifted downward to take close study of the floor of the cart and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Maybe," she said.

"Well then," said Robert, placing her on the back of the cart. "Your job is to put the buckets in there."

Gracie looked down at one of the full buckets, back at her uncle, back to the buckets, and back at her uncle again. The turning wheels in her head were easily seen as she calculated the weight of the bucket and her own strength. The turning was brought to a crashing halt by her obstinacy. "Fine," she said.

Presented with a challenge from her uncle, the little girl buckled down and worked hard for the rest of the morning. When lunchtime rolled around, her cheeks were rosy from her efforts, she had a few small leaves sticking in her hair, and somehow she'd gotten a streak of dirt across her nose and down the side of her face. But nothing seemed to bother her and the grin had yet to leave her face. Beverly managed to snag her by the arm so she could get her to wash up before she attacked her food.

"I'm not dirty," she insisted.

In answer, the doctor plucked the leaves out of her daughter's auburn hair, then held them out.

"They're just leaves. Those aren't dirty. And my hair wasn't going to be in my food," Gracie said.

Beverly reached out and wiped the dirt from the little girl's face and showed her the remnants left behind on her fingers.

"Oh," said Gracie. "Look at that."

"There's even freckles under all that dirt," Beverly said, seeing the sprinkling of them across the girl's nose and cheeks. Once she was sufficiently cleaned up, the doctor turned the girl back out into the lunch crowd. She watched her eagerly run up to the main serving table, her own smile on her face, her hand absently resting on her abdomen.

"You keep doing that and you're going to make me anxious," Jean-Luc said from behind her, placing a kiss just below her ear. "There's still much of the day and night to go with this festival."

"I'm fine," she said, turning her face around to catch his lips.

"Oh my god," came a comment from Andrew as he happened to walk by, then it was followed by an "Ow!" when Allie smacked him in the back of the head.

"Leave them alone," she said.

Beverly and Jean-Luc broke apart when Robert stood up and cleared his throat. He had a little crown in his hands, woven from several grape vines, with a few pastel ribbons interwoven through the woven vines. "Traditionally at this time, we announce our harvest queen," he said. "So if Gracie Picard could come up here, I'll be happy to crown her our queen." His blue eyes were absolutely shining as he looked over at his niece, who had jumped up and squealed, followed by clapping her hand over her mouth in embarrassment. Andrew reached out and gently pushed her forward. She skipped up to her uncle and he placed the crown on her head while she beamed at him.

Beverly leaned over. "He does this every year?" she asked the captain.

He nodded. "It's the first time he's gotten to crown a little girl related to him. He told me this morning he was very happy about being able to do so. He'd wanted to choose Allie, but I told him she would be highly embarrassed and would remain so, while Gracie would be first embarrassed and then thrilled at the idea. It seems I was right."

The crowd finished applauding and broke apart, heading back out to the vines for the last few hours of harvesting. Before heading to the cart with Robert, Gracie ran full-speed toward her parents. "Papa!" she shouted. "Did you see? I'm the harvest queen!"

Jean-Luc picked her up before she ran into his legs and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "I saw," he said. "And what a beautiful queen you make, too." He was rewarded with a grin more radiant than the one given moments before to her uncle. She took off at another run as soon as he put her down. "She'll sleep well tonight," he said, looking at his wife.

"She'll be exhausted," Beverly said, then she made him go work with Allie as her partner had been given over to Robert. The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur and soon enough, all of the vines were bare except for one. The crowd of harvesters gathered at the top of the hill, while at the bottom of the hill, the people to be in the parade into the village had begun to form up.

Gracie had found her way to her mother's side and couldn't seem to decide where to keep her attention, either on the horses at the bottom of the hill, or her uncle and the ceremony at the top. "Who are they?" she asked, her eyes now oriented to the bottom of the hill. A large contingent of the parade consisted of uniformed men and women on horses, the clothing reminiscent of the era of the French Republic.

Marie was up with Robert, so it was Allie who bent down and answered. "Those are members of_ la garde républicaine_, the traditional guards of the French Republic. It's all ceremonial now, but they've been part of this celebration for hundreds of years. They'll lead the parade into the town. Now pay attention up front, you'll see plenty of the soldiers and horses later."

Letting his brother take the spotlight, as Robert should hold as the vineyard's owner and vintner, the captain stood with the rest of his family off to the side where they could see all of the events. Gracie became frustrated at not being able to see because of all the taller adults and began to pace. Recognizing her daughter's growing frustration, Beverly reached down and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. Then Jean-Luc squatted down and helped the girl up onto his shoulders, so that when he stood, she could see everything. Up front, Robert cut the last bunch from the vines and a cheer erupted from the crowd. Once the last bunch had been tossed into the winepress, the crowd surged forward and to the town, led by the garde républicaine. The field at the center of the village had been set up with tables laden with food, various booths of games and displays, a band was setting up alongside a dancing area. When the parade reached the fairgrounds, the garde républicaine dismounted and joined in with the rest of the people. Some of them were showing the younger children the horses, explaining their uniforms and their unit's history.

Each vineyard had a table setup where samples of that year's grapes were made available for tasting, something each harvester had resisted temptation in doing for the entire harvest, at least in theory. Gracie dragged her brother, sister, and cousin over to the garde area so they could listen in on the explanations. Allie took more interest in one of the horses, studying the ceremonial saddle and harness. Beverly wandered over to stand a bit closer so she could hear the conversations. One of the young garde members had taken an interest in Allie and answered every question she could come up with without a hint of impatience. He even seemed to be hanging on the idea that she would keep thinking of questions so that he could keep talking to her.

"I think that young man has become infatuated with our daughter," Beverly said when Jean-Luc appeared her side. "I bet he'll ask her to dance within ten minutes of the band starting."

"I don't know, I think she could be intimidating enough that he may not find the courage to ask," replied the captain.

Half an hour later, Beverly declared a win when she saw that same young man leading Allie out to the dance area.

"Maybe she asked _him_," Picard said in protest.

The hours continued to pass as one long celebration until the sun began to dip down below the mountains on the horizon. Slowly, the booths and tables were packed up and taken away, and revelers began their equally as slow walks back to their homes. As the Picards made their way back to their house, Andrew walked ahead with Robert, plying him with questions about that year's grapes.

"Do the grapes normally taste that good?" he asked.

Robert shook his head. "No. They were particularly sweet this year, due to the hot, dry summer."

"So is that a good predictor of making good wine? I mean, can you tell right now that the wine from this year will be good?"

"Yes and no," Robert said. "We can say that yes, hopefully this year will produce an excellent wine. However, it's superstition to predict such wine, that announcing already that the wine will be good will put an end to any instance of a millisieme year that could follow."

Andrew's nod of understanding was solemn. "Then I won't mention it anymore. But you'll let me know, right? If it does turn out good?"

"Of course. How could I not?" Robert asked. "You helped make it. Don't forget that. Whatever comes out of the vineyard this year, you were a part of its creation."

Robert's comment brought smiles to the faces of more than just Andrew. Just in front Beverly, Gracie had decided to walk with her sister, throwing question after question to her about the boy Allie had met. "I think he likes you," Gracie declared.

"We'll see," Allie replied.

"I think you like him," said Gracie.

"I don't know yet," said Allie, obviously not wanting to talk about it any more than she already had.

It was her cousin who stepped in to save her. "Yeah?" Rene said, nudging Gracie. "I know a boy there who said he likes _you_."

The little girl let out a yelp and grabbed her taller cousin by the collar. "Tell me who!"

"No," he said. "Let go."

"I'm not letting go." Her brow had furrowed in distinct determination to get the information out of her cousin. Beverly had seen it many times before, when Gracie had done her best to get things out of one of her siblings, but her siblings were much taller and stronger than she was, so she normally gave up at some point. However, Rene was relatively closer to her size and Beverly was starting to wonder exactly what Gracie had planned if he didn't talk.

"I'm not going to tell you a thing if you don't let go," Rene said.

Seeing the determination really start to burn in her gray eyes, Jean-Luc took a step forward, leaned over and whispered something in Gracie's ear while placing a firm hand on her shoulder. She frowned, then reluctantly let go of Rene's collar. Then Jean-Luc took her hand and she walked quietly by him the rest of the way home. By the time they reached the front yard, her eyes had started to flutter as she fought sleep. The captain picked her up and brought her upstairs to put her to bed.

Suddenly, Beverly felt as exhausted as her daughter. She sat heavily on the sofa, eyes vacantly focused on the fire that Robert had started in the fireplace. The sounds from the main room around her became muffled, then were drowned out completely as she started to go over the next day's events, knowing she had a lot to plan to make sure things went according to schedule. The fire quickly followed the path of the sounds and drifted from view.

Then she woke up. It was later, much closer to midnight than it had been when she'd first seated herself on the couch. There were a couple quiet voices chatting in the kitchen and she started to turn in that direction. The beginning of another Braxton-Hicks contraction stopped her briefly and then stopped her entirely when it was accompanied by a fierce pain. She frowned at the aberration, knowing that the Braxton-Hicks shouldn't have any pain associated with them, but also knowing it couldn't be real labor because it wasn't to start for hours yet at the earliest estimate. She was still frowning when she felt the telltale sensation of the membrane of the amniotic sac breaking and then releasing the amniotic fluid in a warm gush. Time didn't allow her to shift gears before the second pain hit, staying longer this time, and feeling worse than the one preceding. Once the pain faded, with a glance at the ancient grandfather clock in the Picard living room, she scrabbled in her pockets for her tricorder so she could get a reliable reading. She'd barely gotten the scanning device out when another contraction hit—she knew now that she couldn't call them anything else—and she dropped the tricorder and grabbed her abdomen.

"Shit," she said, the swear coming out as a gasp. She'd forgotten how much it hurt before the medication was injected. And she hadn't thought to keep any here at the house, because so far, this child had kept the same schedule as her others. "I should've known better," she muttered to herself. She stole another look at the clock, not remembering where she'd dropped the tricorder, and saw that only a few minutes had passed between contractions. This boy was in one hell of a hurry.

Behind her, the kitchen door swung open and the captain walked through, presumably to wake her up. "Beverly?" he said, seeing the top of her head.

"Over here, Jean-Luc," she said, her voice sounding weak and irritating the hell out of her, it wasn't the time to be weak. But the pressure in her uterus moved further down and she felt the panic begin to rise in her chest at how quickly she was losing control of the situation. Grasping at anything, she reached in her mind for those Vulcan control techniques she'd learned from Selar, anything to slow this birth down, it was all happening too soon, too fast.

By the time Picard managed to get to the other side of the sofa, another contraction had come and her eyes were screwed shut from the pain. She heard his footsteps but didn't hear him if he said anything. Once the contraction passed, she was able to open her eyes and he stood right there, deathly pale and just as still. "You need to get Marie," she said. "And you need to find my tricorder, I need to know how fast this is happening." She stopped talking and looked at him more closely to find that he looked as if he hadn't breathed or even blinked after finding her. "Go get Marie," she repeated.

He didn't move.

A contraction interrupted her next attempt at speaking. She tried to implement Selar's techniques and instead, found herself swearing vehemently at the Vulcans and their damn useless techniques. All the while, her normally unflappable captain of a husband was entirely flapped and completely useless. The contraction waned and she found herself shouting at him in an attempt to get through to him. "Jean-Luc Picard, I am going to have _your_ child right here on the floor if you don't move your ass!"

Her shout at least made him blink and move forward to her side, which wasn't what Beverly had intended, but was something.

It did, however, cause Marie to come flying through the kitchen door and into the living room. "Already?" Marie said upon seeing her. "Impatient boy, isn't he." She made her second comment as her feet took her over to the comm center and she activated the call for the medical transport. "It will just be a few minutes, Beverly," she said, walking back over.

Meanwhile, another contraction had begun and beside the doctor, Picard looked absolutely lost. "Just breathe through it," he said to her.

The contraction over, Beverly punched him in the arm. "If you're such an expert, you can do this yourself," she snapped. "Get me my tricorder."

His gray eyes suffused with fear, he managed to find the device and hand it to her. "Shit," she said again. "I'm already at six centimeters."

"Good lord," said Marie. "Were your other children this fast?"

"No! He's way too far ahead of schedule," the doctor replied, the panic rising with vigor, laced through with fear at what could be wrong with her baby, at why he would so desperately and quickly trying to be born. Expertly, she flipped open the tricorder and powered it on, only to be hit with another contraction, drop it, and have it break apart on the wood floor. Her resulting curses were masked only a little by insistent knocks on the front door.

Robert had come out of the kitchen and answered the door, allowing the medics to sweep inside with their anti-grav stretcher and other equipment. Equipment that Beverly reached for when they approached her. "That's _my_ scanner, Dr. Picard," the one closest to her said. "You broke yours."

Her eyes narrowed. This medic might think he was funny, but all she wanted to do was punch him.

Another medic, sensing Beverly's anger, pushed his compatriot out of harm's way. "Let's get you onto this stretcher and to the medical center, Doctor," he said, holding out his hands. When she didn't move, he added a "Please."

The two men and the female medic helped her onto the stretcher. Once she was laying down, gravity let go and took some of the pressure off her contractions. A small amount of relief went through her, that at least this boy would be slowed down for a few minutes. They carried her out, Jean-Luc close behind, casting looks behind him as the ruckus had woken up all four of the younger Picards, with Rene running to catch up to Beverly and Jean-Luc's three lined up at the railing that ran along the hallway on the second floor, all of them peering down and observing.

"We'll take care of them, Jean-Luc," Robert said, giving his younger brother a shove out the door.

Beverly had to close her eyes with the contraction and she lost sight of her other three children, the same fear reflected in their eyes at the suddenness and urgency of this birth. The trip in the transport only added to her panic as she felt herself submitted completely to the mercy of other medical professionals. "I want to know your readings," she said once the contraction was over. "I need to know if he's okay."

"I'd tell you that if I could," a medic answered. "But our scans aren't in depth enough to give a really good indication of what's going on. I do know you'll both be fine long enough to get to the medical facility."

"That's not an answer!" Beverly said, snapping at the young medics yet again.

"I'm sorry," the medic said, shrugging her shoulders in apology. "It's the best I've got."

"Beverly, please let them do their jobs," the captain whispered, taking her hand in his. "You just concentrate on whatever else you have to concentrate on."

"I could concentrate better on it if I had all the facts," she said, but she stopped questioning the medics. Jean-Luc had at least regained some of his composure. While he remained very pale, he had some of his command ability back.

True to the medic's words, they arrived at the medical facility with everyone still reading within acceptable levels in heart rate and respiration. Doctors and nurses had already poured out of the double sliding doors and were running scans before the medics had even gotten a chance to finish unloading Beverly from the transport.

When the young obstetrician said, "Dr. Picard, your son is doing fine, he's just in a big hurry is all," she could've kissed her.

Instead, she immediately asked for the standard anesthesia that would block out that pain of childbirth, yet keep her aware of everything that was happening.

And just as immediately, the obstetrician looked panicked. "I'm afraid it's too late for that," she said. "I could give it to you, but it wouldn't start to work until after your son is born. We...we normally have much more of a notice before the actual birthing starts."

"There's a fast-acting solution," Beverly said, straining to catch a glimpse of a chronometer to gauge when the next contraction would start and render her speechless, then she looked at the name tag of the obstetrician—Dr. Therrien.

The younger doctor gave her an apologetic look. "We've had two other births earlier in the week that also moved quickly and that used up our supply. We're supposed to get a shipment tomorrow, so if you could wait until then...oh, but then we would have enough time to use the long-acting medication we have now, so I suppose that won't work."

Beverly lifted her head and glared. "You think that's funny, don't you?"

"Your sister-in-law said that you had a good sense of humor," Therrien replied, motioning for the medics to move Beverly into one of the facility's rooms.

"She lied," said Beverly as they lifted her from the stretcher and over to the bed.

Therrien was already running another scan while the nurses were prepping everything else. A sterile field was quickly established. "Marie Picard was never that good of a liar, so I'm not so sure," she said.

"Could you please be nice to the other doctors?" the captain asked, leaning in close to her ear.

Beverly's irritated reply was halted by another contraction, this one much longer in duration than the others. The real work had just begun, as now she was only getting perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds in between the at least one minute long contractions. Her body switched over to an almost entirely instinctive mode, her breathing automatically becoming deeper and more steady to get needed oxygen into all the muscles that were about to bear down.

Therrien checked the cervix, then looked up at Beverly with a smile. "Okay, you can go ahead and push whenever you're ready."

She fixed a glare on the other doctor. "You've got to be kidding. I've spent the past fifteen minutes trying to hold this kid in and now you expect me to start pushing at a moment's notice?"

"I _did_ say whenever you were ready."

"I was ready fifteen minutes ago!" The tension of the sudden, fast labor and the fact that she had to do this without any anesthesia because of the low stocks of a small village's medical facility had made her ready for a good fight. The next long contraction changed her mind and she dropped her head listlessly back onto the pillow. "Okay," she said. "I'll come back tomorrow. I'm too tired to do this."

When one of the nurses laughed, Beverly couldn't even find the energy to glare at her. Then the energy zipped back again with the next contraction because it had changed to the pushing type, an urge more instinctive than what had settled her to task before. It was overwhelming, the instinct to push was so overpowering that she couldn't _not_ do it. This boy at least followed one birth pattern from his siblings and each pushing contraction resulted in the urge for three good pushes. After only two of the new type of contractions, Therrien announced that the baby was crowning.

"What's that mean?" Jean-Luc asked, his hand gripping his wife's tightly.

"It means your son's head is coming out and staying out, that's what," Beverly said, gritting her teeth through the excruciating pain at where the baby's head was currently positioned. "Go watch him make his entrance into the world."

One of the nurses guided Jean-Luc to watch the birth as Beverly felt another contraction start after only twenty seconds of much needed rest. Therrien kept up the talking. "I've got a shoulder," she said. "Here's the other!"

Though she couldn't see what was happening, Beverly knew exactly what was occurring. With his shoulders free, the baby's body slid right out. She felt him leave her body and waited for the contraction that would carry out the placenta before she collapsed back onto the bed.

"It's a boy!" Therrien announced, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. Beverly gave the obstetrician a warm, tired smile. Any doctor, no matter how many children they assisted into the world, got the same elated feeling when they saw another. It just never got old.

Her smile only grew impossibly wider as she heard the first indignant cries from her newest son, lusty and healthy. She watched as they had Jean-Luc cut the umbilical cord. The captain couldn't take his eyes off the infant as they took in every small movement, every little breath, completely in awe.

And in love. She knew that look from him, the same one he had as he looked at any of their three older children, and here he had the chance to give that look from the moment the boy had been born. Then her own eyes left Jean-Luc's face to see her boy, and when they placed him on her belly for a few seconds, she just wanted to grab her baby and take him in her arms.

Then they whisked him off to the other side of the room to clean him up and Jean-Luc had remembered how to use his feet and had found a place at the side of her bed. He leaned in close to her and whispered, "I love you."

She knew that the message within those three words held more depth than any other time he'd told her. "You're welcome," she whispered back. Then she took his face in her hands and softly kissed away the tears that had traced paths down his cheeks.

Dr. Therrien approached quietly, handing over her now clean and blanket wrapped infant son, then the other doctor made herself scarce. Once again, Beverly was surprised at how heavy a newborn could be, they were so small that she always expected them to be feather-light, even though logically she knew otherwise. Her boy's little head looked practically bald, only a slight fuzz of reddish gold hair making it otherwise. Her long fingers reached out to stroke his head, amazed at how soft his hair and skin were, and then how perfect his little fingers were. He finally deemed it safe enough to open his eyes and for the first time, mother and son regarded one another. The expression in his green eyes drew her smile out again, that same moment of recognition each of her children had experienced, where you could almost hear the infant think—_oh, so you're my mother._

She lifted him so that she could kiss his little forehead, only realizing she had tears herself when one fell on her son's nose. Somehow, Nana had found a way to influence this boy's life, because he had her eyes, even at birth, which in of itself was a rare occurrence. She felt Jean-Luc kiss first her head and then their son's, his harvest-roughened male fingers reaching out to stroke the boy's head as she had done a moment before. "He's so perfect," he said.

And she couldn't agree more.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

A shaft of soft light peering out from behind the red clouds of dawn pressed at Jean-Luc Picard's closed eyes. He slowly opened them, relishing the opportunity to wake up to a true dawn, an opportunity that would be gone within three more weeks. Three more weeks and they would be returning to the _Enterprise_, but only some of them. Andrew and Allie would stay for another week, spending a few more days training, then they would compete in the Federation Cup, then Andrew would come home and Allie would stay on the vineyard.

He missed her already.

The captain rubbed the stiff muscles at the back of his neck. He'd fallen asleep on the chair beside Beverly's bed at some point during the night. She and their newborn son would be discharged this morning, safe to go home to the vineyard. The light that had woken him up fell in a warm wave over her face and hair and he felt his eyes drawn to her. He had never expected the birth process to be so overwhelming in so many ways, or considered how far medicine had come along in removing that awful pain that occurred in natural childbirth. His first thought had been relief for her, that her pain was over. Then he'd caught sight of his son, so quiet at first, then just as quickly, red-faced and squalling. The fact that he'd cried had surprised him at first, but once he thought about it, he was surprised he'd held it in as long as he had. Seeing that process, meeting the boy for the first time, it had been astonishing. And he'd missed it with the others and had felt that emptiness again, that he would never hold them as he had gotten to hold his new son.

The telltale muffled sounds of the boy beginning to fuss started from the bassinet within arm's reach. Picard stood, slowly working the kinks out of his body caused by a night's sleep in a hard chair. Like hours before, when he saw his infant son, he was awestruck. Slowly, he reached out to touch him, and was struck by a sudden shyness. It had been somewhat easier earlier, because there had been so many other people around. Doctors, then nurses, and after that, Beverly. But now it was just him and his son and no one else. Beverly was still asleep on the bed behind them, recovering from the exhaustion of the night before.

The boy had started squirming, pushing away most of the blanket that had covered him. He'd yet to open his eyes, his little face screwed up in frustration at something, but at what, Picard had no idea. He reached out despite his shyness, placing his hand on the boy's small head. The softness of that fuzz of hair took him aback again, the same as the softness of the skin had. Again, he smiled at the hair, at how Beverly's genes tended to be expressed in their children. At his touch, his son's eyes opened and the squirming stopped.

Jean-Luc saw how green they were, surprised that they were anything but blue, it was so rare for newborns to have an eye color other than blue, and remembered the photographs of Beverly's grandmother. He wondered if this would be any indicator of what this boy's temperament would be like. Already, he had started in on impatient and unpredictable with his expedited birth, and continued that trend with an equally unpredictable feeding schedule and an amazing impatience when no one responded to him. The infant started to squirm again and the captain reached down and picked him up, carefully cradling him in his arms. Each of them looked the other in the eye and both remained still for a moment. Then the boy seemed to realized that this was his father and not his mother and resumed his fussing.

"He'll stop if you give him to me," Beverly said, sleepiness laced through her humorous tone.

Picard turned around, indignant. "How can I already bad at this? It hasn't even been twelve hours."

She smiled as she pushed herself up into a seated position and then held out her arms. "Jean-Luc, you haven't got the right equipment, that's all."

"Oh." He handed the child over to her.

Minutes later, a knock sounded on the door just before Dr. Therrien opened it and walked into the room. "I'm just coming in to check on everyone before I head home," she said. "You aren't planning anymore surprises for me, are you?"

"Now, Doctor," said Beverly, her blue eyes back to their normal mischievousness. "We both know that if I told you, that would ruin the surprise."

Therrien let out a short laugh. "I see that Marie wasn't lying about your sense of humor." The young French doctor noted a few readings onto the padd she carried.

"I'm really sorry. It's happened every time I've given birth. Not only do I completely lose any and all sense of humor that I possess, but I also lose the ability to recognize what humor even is. Then I wake up on the other side with a wonderfully healthy baby and an equally healthy dose of guilt."

"Apology accepted," said Therrien. "Speaking of babies, let me take another look at him before I go. The nurses said he hasn't set any sort of reliable schedule?"

Beverly shook her head. "No. Twenty minutes, forty-five minutes, two hours, the intervals between feedings are completely unpredictable," she said, handing her son over to the other doctor.

Therrien ran a medical tricorder scan of the boy. "Have you got a name for him so his records can be updated from Baby Picard?"

The captain caught the look that Beverly automatically shot at him. They'd had many discussions about it over the past few months, at how he hadn't had any choice in the names of their other children, and she wanted him to choose. Then he would rejoinder with the fact that he wasn't carrying and then giving birth to the child himself, so she should be the one to choose. In the end, they'd decided to go with the name the other children had found. From the look he was getting from his wife, Jean-Luc surmised that she wanted him to tell the doctor. "Gabriel," he said, unable to hide his smile.

"Oh, what a wonderful name," Therrien said, adding it to the information on her padd. "How did you decide on it?"

"After an ancestor of mine," said Picard. "His, too, now that I think about it. Our older children discovered the ancestor and it seemed appropriate."

"How old are your other children?"

He paused for a second, doing the math. "Sixteen, sixteen, and five."

Therrien slid a look at Beverly, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. "I can't even begin to imagine what a harridan you must've been when you gave birth to those twins," she said.

"You don't want to," Beverly replied, but her attention was on the results of the scan on the other doctor's tricorder, which she couldn't quite read from her bed. "How are the readings?"

The younger doctor entered one last detail on her padd, then put the tricorder back into her pocket. "He's fine, Doctor," Therrien said, handing Gabriel back to his mother. "Just temperamental. You're both cleared to go home whenever you wish. I imagine he's got a lot of people waiting to meet him." She smiled at them all before exiting. "Take care." The door shut quietly behind her.

"That's it?" he said, his eyes still on the closed door.

"That's it. Now we go home, once you come and take your son so I can get out of this bed and change. I'm ready for a nice, long shower, and not one of the sonic showers here, either."

He heard her response but didn't turn to look at her, nor did he move to do ask she'd asked. Instead, he wrestled with the panic beginning to rise within him, panic more strong than he'd felt earlier, at being responsible for the well-being of this infant. Somehow, the prospect seemed more daunting than commanding a starship.

"Jean-Luc." Her tone had changed from the nonplussed explanation to soft concern.

"I'm sorry," he said, slowly moving his gaze away from the door. It almost felt like abandonment, that young doctor taking off that quickly. "Shall I call for a transport?"

She reached out with her free arm and grasped his hand in hers. "We'll be fine, you know. We can handle this. You being in command of a starship, me being in command of a sickbay, what's an infant compared to that?"

"Infinitely more daunting," he replied.

After she changed, they carefully boarded the transport back to the vineyard. The captain watched the bare fields pass by on the five minute trip, acutely aware that everything had drastically changed within the past twenty-four hours. The harvest was over, his son had been born, and now the chilly arms of winter were reaching out to embrace the land for the next few months. But they wouldn't be there, they would be out in the cold depths of space, unaffected by the seasons.

Soon enough, they were at the house and climbing out of the transport and already, someone was bolting out the door. "Let me see him!" Gracie shouted.

"Hush," said Picard, bending to see her. "You'll wake him up."

She jumped into his arms and kissed him on the cheek as he picked her up. "I missed you," she said, then looked over at Beverly. "And you too. But I can't hug you, you're holding my new brother. Can I see him? Please?"

The captain shared a warm smile with Beverly at their daughter's eagerness to meet her new brother. Then the doctor walked over to the two of them so that Gracie could see. "We named him Gabriel," she said.

"Oh!" said Gracie, clapping her hand to her mouth. "He's so little." She peered in closer, studying his small features. "Was I this little?"

"You were smaller, actually," Beverly said.

"Can I hold him?"

"Later today, you can. You have to be sitting down when you do and you've got to hold in him a specific way, so his head is supported. Where are your brother and sister?"

"We're right here," came Allie's answer. She and Andrew had walked outside and they both stood on the edge of the porch. With her answer, Allie stepped off the porch and came over to where the others stood, peering at her little brother as Gracie had done. "Look at that," she said. "Little bugger's got red hair. What is it with this family? Don't you people realize how hard it is to live with three redheads as it is? And now you've gone and made another?"

The captain couldn't help himself. "As I recall, it was your suggestion that we have another."

Allie pulled a face at him. "I hate it when you use my logic against me." She took another look at Gabriel, her mock annoyance fading from her face. "So he's okay? And you're okay? I mean, that all happened awfully fast last night."

Beverly nodded. "We're fine. He was just very impatient to be born."

"Well, the others are waiting inside," said Allie. "And I'm guessing it's too cold now for him to be out here long." She held her arms out and extricated her sister from their father's arms. "Come on. Let them in."

Picard watched as Beverly followed the two girls indoors, noticing that Andrew stayed out on the porch, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. The boy kept a curious look on Beverly and Gabriel as they went in, his brow furrowed in deep thought. He looked behind him when he realized that Picard hadn't followed the rest of the family inside. "Aren't you going in?" he asked.

"Not yet." He'd recognized this moment as one that could lead to a conversation he needed to have with his older son. Especially now, with his new brother arriving at home, and the possibility of him thinking that he would be set aside in favor of the son the captain had witnessed being born.

"I wonder who he'll be like," Andrew said, looking again towards the now-closed door.

"Like himself," the captain replied. "He'll be himself, just like any of us are."

Andrew didn't turn, even as Picard moved forward and took a seat on the edge of the porch. "But are any of us really ourselves? Every standard we're held up to, we're compared to someone else. Look at that, he's got his father's eyes. Look at that, he's got his mother's hair. He must get his temper from her, he certainly hasn't got any of his father's calm nature. Doesn't want to be a doctor, but he wants to join Starfleet. Maybe there will be another Captain Picard, but will he be as good?" His eyes were still on the door.

Perhaps this was what caused the problems between them, and lately, Andrew's problems with deciding on what he wanted to do, or his psychological troubles in his sports. Not only had he spent his entire life putting pressure on himself by comparing himself to his twin sister, but now it seemed he'd been comparing himself to his father, something he hadn't done most of his life. It was an affliction of every son. The captain had watched as his stepson, Wesley, had done the same most of his life. For a long time, the boy followed a path fashioned after his dead father's, intent on becoming a Starfleet officer, even going so far as to complete three years at the Academy. It wasn't until midway through his fourth year that he'd chosen to leave. And still, he was trying to find his path.

Andrew hadn't had to deal with that problem, not until ten months ago, because he hadn't known who his father really was. He'd thought his father dead and knew nothing about him. Maybe it was a bit easier on a boy who grew up with it, at least in comparing himself to measures already set by his father, having gotten used to it through the years. With Andrew, it had all happened at once, he had no adjustment period.

What the captain hadn't realized was just how much his son thought he had to live up to, so much that it was affecting his plans, on what he'd dreamed of since he was a boy. Picard knew that once Andrew fully decided to finish his studies to take the Academy exam, that once the boy became a Starfleet officer, there would be no doubt that Andrew would make an excellent one. Far better than his father, but he couldn't say that, especially not now. He would take it as a platitude and Picard wouldn't blame him for it.

"It's an awful lot of responsibility," Andrew said. "Having your last name. I didn't realize it right off. But I guess he'll have a chance at it. I mean, he'll be used to it by the time he's old enough to realize what it means. Maybe you won't even be a captain anymore by the time he's in school."

"That would only be four years from now," said Picard. "I doubt they'll be able to pry me out of the seat in that amount of time. They haven't managed to do it yet."

With the subject of the conversation shifted, Andrew finally turned and sat on the edge of the porch as well, leaving the space of the stairs between himself and the captain. "They've tried?"

"More than once. The only other person they've tried to promote off the _Enterprise_ more than myself is Commander Riker. And Will is just waiting for them to carry my cold, dead body out of the chair so he can have it from me."

"I doubt that."

The captain raised an eyebrow at his son. "You doubt that Will wants command of the _Enterprise_?"

"No. I doubt that he'd wait for your body to get cold."

Jean-Luc chuckled, as the statement was far from the truth. After having watched what Will went through during those times the crew thought him dead, he knew his first officer and friend would take the death of his captain incredibly hard. He left the silence between them for a bit, then turned the conversation back onto what Andrew had brought up. "What happened?" he asked.

Andrew frowned and looked at him. "When?"

"You had the bout well in hand. What happened?"

He shrugged and looked out at the yard, away from his father's concern. "Nothing. I just didn't make an adjustment in time and he doubled out."

"I don't believe that."

"Well, you saw it. Tell me what you think happened."

"Do you really want me to tell you what I think happened?" If the boy wanted to know what he thought, he would tell him, but he had to be certain. They played this game a lot—being very Picard, as Allie would say—and would never really come out and say what they were thinking. But Robert was right, and Allie as well, that that particular family trait had to come to an end.

Another shrug. "Go ahead. It can't be anything different from what I saw. I was there too." Andrew's voice had taken on a thread of uncertainty, but his reply was the same, even as he kept his eyes away from his father's.

"I saw a young man who stood on the strip and realized two things because he listened to the crowd. He heard the crowd chanting his last name, as they'd done with his twin sister. So he thought, oh, they think I've got to win, because my sister already won her bout. And then he was struck by the second thought, that the last name they were chanting was his father's as well, and they must have done the same with him when he was a youth. Which means you thought, I've got to win, because he must have won, too."

Andrew turned around again. "You did, didn't you?"

Picard shook his head. "No. I only made it to the round of eight. During my bout, I was in a full out retreat, tripped, and cracked my head hard on the piste. Gave myself a nice concussion, so I got a trip to the medical facility instead of the round of four. That's the highest placement I managed in all the years I competed in that tournament. Félix will corroborate the story if you don't believe me."

"So you've failed."

"Many times."

"Many?"

"Hitting my head in that tournament wasn't the first time, nor the last time, that I failed. It happened again when I took my first Academy entrance exam." The last time he'd admitted that, he'd been speaking to Wesley, even at around the same age. It reminded him that they should contact him to tell him about the arrival of his new brother.

"You? Jean-Luc Picard? How could you say you failed at all when you're already in the history books and you aren't even dead? I mean, most people have to die first."

"I've nearly died enough times that I should be dead. But you know most of those stories. Did you have this problem with pressuring yourself before you moved to the _Enterprise_?"

Yet another shrug. "I guess. I mean, it's a strange thing sometimes, to have a twin. You compete with one another, you compare yourself to them. If she's done something well, it means that I should be able to. So then I'm compelled to do as well, and if I don't...well, it means I've failed in some way. But it wasn't his bad. I've never fallen apart like I did on that strip, and don't say that wasn't what happened, because it _was_. All I had to do was make at least one more minor adjustment to my strategies and I didn't. Even at the end, I knew what Durand was doing, because I would've done the same thing. Ten seconds is plenty of time to set something up, especially with him stuck on the end of the strip. But I rushed it, I panicked, and that was it."

"What changed?" He knew the answer, but he wanted to see if Andrew would admit to it.

Andrew stood up and started walking towards the barn.

Apparently not easily. _I'm not my brother. If I wanted you to leave me alone, I'd tell you_. Enough time had passed between when Andrew had fallen apart on the strip and his unspoken request to leave him alone, so leaving him as he asked wasn't an option. The captain stood and followed him in equally measured strides.

"You," Andrew said, once he realized the conversation was far from over. "Everything made sense before you. I mean, I at least knew something of who I was. I didn't have to worry about living up anything, aside from whatever Allie did. But I could keep up with her." The boy stopped and turned on his heel. "Could. I can't do it anymore. She hasn't even been training as much as I have and I couldn't match her results."

He turned back around and started walking again. "Then everything was taken away, things I thought were just mine, and I realize that what I dreamed about wasn't original at all. I was doing the same as Wesley, treading the same path that his father did." They'd reached the barn and Andrew slid open the heavy door. "He'd known since we were fifteen and ten that he really didn't want to be in Starfleet, but he couldn't think of what else he'd want to do. He still can't, so he stays on Caldos and helps out with running the infrastructure, studying whatever it is he studies in his spare time. He hasn't got any direction and it's all because he _thought_ he knew where he was going."

They were heading up the stairs to the second floor now. The captain stayed right by his elder son's side.

"And I thought I'd known too. I'd never really questioned it and I studied what I needed to and trained what I needed to train for, because I was going to get into the Academy and become a Starfleet officer. I didn't question it because my choice was different from Wesley's—I was following my own path, not trying to follow my father. Then Nana died and Beverly came and then you came along and everything changed."

Andrew absently picked up a padd and tapped at its screen. Then he dug up a paper notebook and flipped through the pages, browsing for some particular information. "Suddenly I wasn't who I thought I was, and somehow, I was doing the exact same thing as Wesley."

Having found what he was looking for, he set the notebook next to the padd and went to fiddling with the controls on the telescope. "Who I am completely changed. Going from Andrew Howard, orphan, to Andrew Picard, the captain's son. Like that damn first day I had at the ship's school, everyone looked at me so differently than the kids on Caldos. And it wasn't just the 'new kid' reaction, either. It's like they expected so much more out of me because I'm your son."

He stopped manipulating the controls to stand and look at Picard. "So you want to know what really happened in that bout? It wasn't that I was being compared to Allie, I'm used to that, for the most part. It's that they all knew I was _your_ son, and suddenly, I absolutely had to win." Andrew paused, rubbing at his chin, then faced away from his father and back to the telescope. "And I didn't. I lost instead." Another adjustment, then the boy grabbed up the padd again and made another notation.

"What are you setting up for?" asked the captain. He knew that the only way he'd get anything further from his son would be to take a small step back from the strength of the emotions he'd just let pour out. Most likely, he'd had yet to realize just how much he had revealed.

"What?" he asked. Then his mind switched tracks for him. "Oh, there's a comet coming through here tonight, I want to catch it. Since I bailed on Gracie last night, I'll bring her up here to see it too. It's one of the periodic ones that's been around forever—see, I've gone and done it again. It's connected to you somehow and I didn't even think of it. You were born when this comet was in the sky, that's what she wrote in her book and I didn't even think of it until now." Andrew threw the padd down to the floor, snapping it in two. "You're like a ghost, you know that? Always around even when you think you aren't."

For a moment, the captain thought his son was going to bolt. It was, after all, the pattern that had been established between them. They'd confront one another, then someone would walk or even run away, and the entire matter would be half-dropped. It wouldn't be spoken of again, but it stayed with them both, pushing that gap larger and larger, that rift that Picard saw growing between the two of them. But like an observer of wildlife, the captain wasn't willing to move or speak lest he scare the boy away.

Andrew let out a heavy sigh and sat down equally as heavily on a storage crate, one that had held wine bottles and now waited for some other purpose, the bottles all used for the harvest's wine. "Have you ever been sure of what you wanted, then gotten it, and then realized you hadn't been so sure after all?"

Picard thought of a reply, but he knew he couldn't say it. Couldn't say _oh, no, I've never had that happen to me. I've always been sure of everything_. He had a different course, one where he'd set out for what he thought he wanted, his captaincy, gotten it, then looked back and realized everything he'd missed out on, and all the things he'd left behind. While he knew that being a captain was what he wanted still, it was only a part of his now. One of those things he'd left behind—one of those people—sat in front of him right then, leveling a steady stare. But the captain said nothing aloud, not knowing what would be safe to say.

"I didn't think so," Andrew said, standing up and then treading down the stairs without a backwards glance.

When his son's footsteps had faded away, Picard grabbed up the remnants of the padd and put them on the crate Andrew had abandoned. Meanwhile, a feeling had grabbed his mind, that if he could somehow repair the padd, he could do the same with the tenuous relationship between himself and his son. He couldn't even recall the moment when it had gone down this confrontational path and now it conspired to spiral out of their control. With none of the necessary tools for padd repair on hand, the task was hopeless. "Damn," he said. Perhaps it was a reflection of how he was as a father, that he had none of the necessary tools, and the idea of him being able to raise children with any sort of success was a hopeless endeavor.

Andrew had been right, all three of them had been perfectly fine before Felisa died. Only when he entered their lives had they become so troubled. As he tried to force two conduits together, another snapped. "Damn," he said again.

"Swearing at it isn't going to make it any less broken," Allie said from the top of the stairs.

Picard lifted his glare from the broken padd and to his daughter.

"Don't you glare at me for something you've done," she said.

"I didn't break it, if that's what you're implying." He pushed the remnants aside and sat where they had been. "Did you come up here for a reason?"

"I did, actually." Allie pulled up another crate and seated herself. Then she noticed the old notebook and picked it up, paging through it. "I ran into my brother on my way here to feed the horses and he was as cranky as you are." She looked up. "I take it you had an argument?"

"If it was an argument, I haven't the slightest idea what we were arguing about."

"You're just the target right now. I talked to him about me staying here, you know that. He didn't take it well and he's trying not to acknowledge that he isn't taking it well. And then, because he's in that awkward adolescent male stage of establishing an identity independent of his father's, he can't talk to you about it, even though he wants to." She leaned forward. "I'll tell you a secret, though. But you can't let on."

"What?"

"He's signed up for one of the testing slots for the Academy next week. But you didn't hear that from me." Allie reached into her pocked and pulled out a photograph. "Anyway, I thought you should see this." She handed it to him, effectively changing the subject.

Giving her a quizzical look, he took the photograph from her hand. He saw that it was similar to the one of Beverly asleep on a bed with an infant Gracie, but it seemed that Felisa had a penchant for catching her granddaughter and great-grandchildren unawares while they slept. He recognized the bedroom on Caldos, the one Gracie had slept in when the _Enterprise_ first arrived there. But it was a photograph from before the little girl had been born, as it was Beverly, asleep again, with two infants nestled against her. Instantly, he could tell who was whom, as Allie had a full head of jet black hair, while her twin brother had as little hair as Gabriel did now. He gently reached out with his fingers, as if he could touch them if he wished it so. "Where did you find this?" he asked, finally taking his eyes away from it.

"Wes sent it," Allie replied. "He found it downstairs in Nana's things, it arrived yesterday. Since you and Mom were a bit busy, I took it upon myself to open up the package." She stood up and held out her hand. "Come on, old man. Let's get back to the house before Mom starts saying you've run out on her."

His brow crinkled in annoyance at her comment.

Allie laughed. "I said that just to get that look from you, you know."

"Funny," he said, getting to his feet. He left the barn, while Allie stayed behind to finish feeding the horses.

He returned to an again quiet house, the rest of the family having gone off on errands. With some amount of trepidation, he went up the stairs and peeked into the nursery, where he was certain he'd find his wife and their son. When he caught sight of them, he said nothing at first, the look on Beverly's face stunning him into silence. She looked as petrified as he had felt earlier that morning when the other doctor left them with no more than a good-bye. He knew nothing was wrong with their son, as he could see him from his spot at the doorway, sleeping peacefully in the bassinet—a moment that seemed rare for this child already. Seeing Beverly scared served to frighten him yet again, that a woman so knowledgeable and in control could be as petrified as she looked meant that he stood no hope. "Beverly?" he said.

She looked up. "Nana had always been around," she said, nearly whispering. "Even when I had Wesley, she was around. What if I can't do this alone?"

Instinctively, he went to her, pulling her into his arms. "You aren't alone in this," he said. "I'm here. I'll admit, I might not know anything about child rearing, but I'm here." He moved his face away a bit so he could see hers. "Hey," he said. "Allie gave me something you might want to see." Then he took the photograph out of his pocket and handed it to Beverly, hoping in some way that it would give her some cheer.

She took it cautiously, almost as if she were expecting the paper to nip at her fingers. "What's—" she began to ask, then the rest of the question stalled in her throat as she saw the photo, and instead of finishing her question, she bit her bottom lip.

Behind her, Gabriel started fussing, short and soft cries of infant frustration.

Picard looked from Beverly, to the boy, and back, feeling his own panic rise again. He'd felt some sort of confidence in Beverly's confidence, but now they both knew that neither felt confident in any way.

The doctor held out the photograph, trembling. "Funny how this surfaces right about now. It's like Nana's a ghost, always here in some way." Her hand fell to her side and her glance fell back towards her infant son. "Then again, it's painfully obvious that she's gone, especially when you need her advice the most."

As with his older son before, he wanted to speak words of confidence and reassurance, words that came so easily to him as a captain. But all that came to him was an ancient sailing adage, one repeated for those sailors helpless to the whims of mother nature.

_Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning._


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Allie felt strange, watching her family that day, all of them getting ready to return to their life on the _Enterprise_, while she would be staying behind. Even though Andrew was staying behind as well, he would eventually be returning, just a week after the rest of them. She would be staying here and probably not ever live on the ship again. Yes, she would visit plenty, but the strange feeling came from knowing that her days of living with her parents were over, and she'd only had ten months with them in the first place. Like the weeks during the harvest, the weeks after Gabriel had been born had passed as quickly, already he would be leaving and she'd barely gotten to know her new brother.

Leaving her younger sister asleep in the other twin bed, Allie slipped out of the bedroom she shared with her and down the stairs. Though they were both early risers, it was early even for them. A look stolen at the grandfather clock in the living room told her it was only five in the morning. The family now slept in later since the harvest was over, most of them not rising until seven. Her parents, however, had only had scant sleep in the past few weeks, the stretches of uninterrupted sleep coming in fits and bursts at the whim of her younger brother. Just within the past week had her mother been able to identify what was going on with Gabriel, and that only after some remarkably frightening instances of what looked like allergic reactions from the infant.

She'd heard her mother speaking with Marie about it outside on the porch, speaking about the many tolls and frustrations of motherhood, and sometimes feeling entirely inadequate to be a mother at all. Those emotions of fear over being a good parent she taken for granted that her father would have, it hadn't occurred to her at all that her mother would have them as well. After all, she'd managed to raise Wesley without any major issues. While she'd held up with Gabriel's strange schedule—which ended up being entirely nonexistent at all, following no pattern of any derivation—once she figured out the cause, she had become much more somber. At first, Allie hadn't been able to figure out why it would cause a downturn in her mother's mood. After all, a cause meant a treatment and a cure and should result in an upswing in moods all around.

When Allie had heard her mother and aunt talking, she'd been struck by how instinctive it all was, how easily her mother was made to feel inadequate by her inability to breastfeed her infant. And how easily she attributed the problem to herself, when it was Gabriel's condition, not hers. Her little brother had alactasia, which meant he had no lactase activity at all. It was a condition that could be treated, but it took some time, and meant that in the meantime, he had to be fed a chemically specific type of formula that both gave him the nutrients he needed and helped sustain the growth of the lactase enzymes in his digestive tract. As soon as she'd diagnosed him, Beverly had given him the first treatment to create the needed lactase in his system, as well as constructed the cellular basework he'd need to continue manufacturing his own lactase. But nothing could be done in changing the rest of the regimen he'd need for the next couple of months, and she'd resigned herself to bottle-feeding him.

But Allie would have to have been blind not to notice how much it bothered her mother.

At the bottom of the stairs, she noticed Beverly had fallen asleep on the couch, Gabriel in her arms and also asleep. While her brother looked comfortably settled, her mother's head and neck were cocked at an odd angle. Allie tread quietly over and gently shook Beverly's shoulder. "Mom."

Slowly, the doctor's eyes opened. "What's wrong?"

It bothered Allie how tired and worn out she looked, she'd not seen her like this even after an especially busy emergency night in sickbay. "Nothing. You fell asleep on the sofa and if you keep sleeping here, you'll get an awful crick in your neck. Go up to bed."

"That's my line," she replied with a half-hearted smile.

"I learned it from you," said Allie, carefully taking Gabriel from her mother, doing her best not to jostle him awake. While his sleep schedule had actually taken some vague semblance of an actual schedule in the past few days, it was still largely unpredictable. "I'll put him to bed. You just go take care of yourself."

Beverly gave her a dubious look.

"Hey, the worst that can happen is that he'll cry. I can deal with that so you and Papa can get some sleep. You've got a lot of traveling today and the only thing I have to do is stick around here."

Beverly continued giving the look.

"Please?"

The doctor rose slowly from the sofa, mumbling something about being too tired to argue, and disappeared upstairs. Her capitulation left Allie standing in the middle of the room, delicately holding her baby brother in her arms and hoping he wouldn't wake up. She managed to get all the way up the stairs and then into the nursery before Gabriel's green eyes opened and studied her. They shared a moment of silence as they regarded one another, then his little face screwed up in frustration and he started to cry.

Allie swore and frantically looked around the room for something that would help calm him down. He didn't need to be changed, he'd been fed one or two hours before, he wasn't in any pain that she could see. In the end, all she could do was hold him while he cried and hope that it didn't wake up anyone else.

Within fifteen minutes, the nursery door cracked open and a bleary-eyed Andrew peeked in. "Where's Mom?"

"I made her go sleep."

Rubbing his face to wake himself up, he walked fully into the room. "And she _did_?"

Allie nodded, shifting Gabriel to hold him against her shoulder. It didn't make a difference in his cries. She was beginning to get an understanding of why both her parents seemed so haggard and at wit's end as of late. It didn't make anyone feel good to feel hopeless and unable to control things, much less a ship's captain and a chief medical officer.

"He's going to wake everyone up," Andrew said.

Frustrated, Allie stood up and handed Gabriel to her twin. "Go ahead, get him to stop yourself."

Gabriel's crying paused at the exchange and he quietly studied his older brother. Then the moment passed and he was back at it. Andrew held his brother as if he were holding a poisonous animal. "What am I supposed to do?"

"How the hell should I know? I can't get him to stop, no one can. He's just unhappy for some reason and I don't know why." She went and sat down heavily in one of the armchairs.

Still holding his brother at arm's length, Andrew found his way to another chair. If they hadn't had this problem with Gabriel since the day he came home, Allie would've found this situation humorous—the baby crying and Andrew with this desperately frantic look on his face whenever he looked at his younger brother. In what seemed to be an act of that felt desperation, Andrew put Gabriel cross wise over his thighs and a hand on the baby's back.

And Gabriel stopped crying.

Allie said nothing at first, waiting to see if it was a fluke. Then when Gabriel didn't start back up, she looked at her twin in shock. "How did you do that?"

His look was equally as shocked. "I don't know."

"Well, don't move. Whatever you do, don't move."

"What if my legs fall asleep?"

"I don't care. This is the first time he's actually settled down without having to fall asleep. So now you hold him until he actually does fall asleep because you figured out how to get him to stop crying."

Andrew frowned. "I don't know how I did it."

She nodded. "And that's exactly why you aren't allowed to move."

The panic surfaced on Andrew's face again. "You aren't going to leave me here alone, are you?"

"No," she said with a sigh. "I suppose not. Though, I am tempted." Then she realized she had her twin pinned down and she could talk to him and he'd have nowhere to go. "How many days until the exam?"

Andrew looked as if he wanted to shift in his chair, but couldn't because of his brother. "Five," he replied, absently rubbing Gabriel's back. "It's the day before the Federation Cup, so I'll just go to Paris the day before. You should go too."

"I'm not taking the exam."

His brow crinkled in annoyance. "I didn't mean for you to infer that I wanted you to take the exam. If you go the day before as well, it will all be attributed to the Cup."

"Oh," she said, sitting back and nodding. "So I'm your cover story."

He rolled his eyes. "I don't need a cover story. I can go without you just fine."

"And that's why you told our parents about the exam already?" Allie chose to ignore the other implications of what he'd said, that he could go without her just fine. From the way he'd been reacting to their impending separation, their first since they'd been born, he wouldn't be 'just fine.'

The frown etched deeper into his face and he glanced toward the window. She recognized the movements and reactions in him, he wanted to bolt. And if he weren't in charge of keeping his younger brother quiet, he would have by now. Then he moved his gaze back to his twin. "This isn't fair. I can't get away from you right now. And I don't want to talk."

"You never do. I figure this is better than having to wrestle you to the ground."

He didn't answer, but he didn't look away, either.

"Why can't you tell him?"

"I thought this was about me not telling either of our parents, not just Papa," came his immediate reply.

"Your problem is with him, not with Mom." She paused, really understanding what was going on with her brother. "Actually, your problem is with yourself. I mean, you used to be so sure of yourself, when we lived on Caldos. You knew what you wanted to do with your life and you had done everything to make sure you could accomplish it. And now it's like you've lost all those steps you'd taken, like someone ran by and jerked the ladder out from under you when you were nearly to the top. But the ladder isn't gone, it's right next to you. Yet you're intent on kicking it away instead of picking it up. Why is that?"

"I just don't know if that's what I want to do."

She glared at him. "You're a liar."

His head snapped up. "I am not."

"Not only that, but you're a horrible liar. You still want to be in Starfleet, you still want to be a ship captain, you still dream of it. But now you're frustrated because it isn't your original idea, or at least, you think that now it isn't your idea and you've been influenced by others. Let me tell you something, Andrew Picard. You might think you were never influenced by our parents before you knew who they were, but you're wrong. When we thought Mom was just our aunt, you looked up to her. We all did, with her being in Starfleet and being so good at what she does. And you've always followed where she went in her assignments, and then you kept track of where the _Enterprise_ went when she was assigned to it. But it wasn't just her."

Andrew's eyes had started their nervous flickering from window to door, taking note of the exits, but he still couldn't move where he sat, no matter how much he might look.

She kept on.

"Wesley mentioned Captain Picard and you started studying his career, from when he started at the Academy until we actually met him in person. You've admired him and seen him as a role model for a long time and that's not a bad thing. You know, if he wasn't our father, if you had no idea you were related to him in any way, you'd have no issues with this at all, you'd have no problems saying that he's your hero. And yet, because you've found out he _is_ your father, you're afraid that your identity will somehow be subjugated to his and you can't ever admit that he was or is your hero." She stopped, waiting for her twin's reaction.

Andrew's gaze had drifted down to his lap, where his brother squirmed quietly, the picture of a content infant. "I don't know what you expect me to say," he said, his tone soft, almost defeated.

"I don't expect you to say anything to _me_," she said.

He glared at her again. "I don't care what you think I should say to Papa, I'm not going to say it. I'm not telling him about the exam. What if I fail? How would that look? Captain Picard's son failing the entrance exam to Starfleet Academy?" His voice had actually started to gain in volume as he let his emotions begin to escape.

She pointed to their brother.

Andrew looked down, realizing that he could neither move from his spot nor raise his voice like he wanted. "Dammit," he said. "How am I supposed to effectively argue with you with him here?"

"You aren't," she said. "You aren't supposed to argue with me at all. All you have to do is stop being an idiot."

Again, his head snapped up. "I'm not being an idiot."

Allie chose not to take the easy opening for a smart remark that her brother had been kind enough to give her. "Papa failed the exam his first time around."

"He did?" Andrew's eyebrows tried to climb up to his hairline.

She nodded. "Yeah. It was the math portion of the exam that knocked him below the pass line."

"You're making it up."

"I am not. Wesley told me when I told him about you taking the exam."

At her last comment, Andrew's muscles tensed enough that she wondered if he would burst out of his skin. "I can't believe you told him."

"I didn't set out to tell him, it just occurred naturally within the course of the conversation."

Andrew's look continued to be one of disbelief. "Like I'm supposed to believe that. How's the weather? Weather's fine, not snowing since it's summer here. Oh, well, the harvest is over here in France. Oh, and, by the way, Andrew decided to take the entrance exam to the Academy. Fancy that."

"That's not how it happened," she said, exasperated. "And you know it. Furthermore, that isn't even _important_. You should—" she stopped short when the nursery door opened.

This time, it was Gracie who poked her head inside. "I woke up because Gabriel isn't crying," she said. "Is he okay?"

Allie pointed at Andrew. "He's fine. When I gave him to Andrew, he stopped."

Gracie turned a wide eyed shocked look onto her older brother, the same look Andrew had gotten when Gabriel had stopped crying. "How'd you do that?" she asked.

"I don't _know_," he said. "If I knew, I'd be telling all of you so that I could move."

The little girl frowned. "Why can't you move?"

"I told him he wasn't allowed to until Gabriel fell asleep," Allie answered for him.

Andrew glared at her.

Gracie gave her brother a dismissive shrug at his plight, then climbed into Allie's lap, putting her arms around her sister's neck. "I don't want to leave," she said. "I like it here."

Over the top of the younger girl's auburn hair, Allie made eye contact with Andrew. His gray eyes had become set with concern at the statement Gracie had made, entirely ditching their former thread of conversation for this new one. To them, it was more important than anything that had only to do with themselves. They had done this a lot on Caldos, the two of them looking out for their younger sister when Nana wasn't around. Always, it had been the three of them.

"Is it that you don't want to leave because you like it here, or you don't want to leave because Allie won't be coming back with us to the ship?" Andrew asked, the timbre of his voice becoming gentle, revealing none of the frustration that had been so evident before.

Gracie's reply was muffled by Allie's shoulder and she had to repeat herself when she got a nudge from her sister's elbow. "I don't want Allie to stay behind," she said, then re-buried her face.

Andrew leaned slightly forward, keeping a hand on Gabriel's back. "You knew it had to happen someday," he said. Then he glanced down at his brother and realized he was finally asleep. Carefully, he rose and placed the infant in the bassinet. "That one of us was going to leave. Allie's just first. She was planning this even when we lived in Caldos, to come to Earth for university."

"Just because I knew it was going to happen doesn't mean I thought it would _actually_ happen," the little girl said, finally turning to face her brother. "And I don't want it to."

"You've known for years that I was going to go away to Starfleet Academy," Andrew continued. "Just the same as you knew about Allie. And someday, you'll do the same, leave and go off somewhere for school. It's just a part of life."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," said Gracie.

Andrew blinked. "No, but you do have to deal with it," he said after a moment's thought. "It isn't easy, I understand that. But sometimes, you haven't got a choice."

"There's always a choice," she replied, becoming indignant.

Andrew got out of his chair and squatted in front of her. "There may always be a choice," he said. "But it's an illusion of choice, because both choices are equally awful and will lead to equally awful results in the end. And even then, you have no choice but to deal with what happens."

Allie realized that for once, they really were talking over Gracie's head. While their younger sister was intelligent and had an ability to reason far beyond her years, she was still a five-year-old human girl. And sometimes, she felt and did five-year-old things and wouldn't understand adult things, such as the idea that sometimes in life, you didn't have a choice but to live with what happened. Gracie didn't want an explanation or even understanding of what was happening, that her sister was moving away, that her older brother would be moving away some months afterward, and yet again in her life, everything would change. What she wanted was some amount of comfort that some things would stay the same. Allie hugged her sister tightly. "I'll still be around," she said. "You can always sent me a communique, audio, visual, or even in text. You can write me letters. Send me pictures. I won't be a lifetime way, I'll just be here on Earth. The ship will come by enough times, and I'll certainly meet up with the ship to visit all of you. You aren't losing me, okay?"

When a few minutes passed and Allie hadn't gotten a reply, she pushed her sister's head away from her shoulder so she could see her face. Gracie didn't have the will to fight, she was too busy concentrating on keeping herself from crying, Allie could easily see it, the trembling chin, biting the bottom lip. "It's okay to cry," she said to her.

"Isn't," replied her sister, who then pointed to Andrew. "_He_ doesn't cry."

A wry smile played at the corners of his mouth. "That's because I'm an idiot," he said. "And you're not."

Andrew's admittance to what Allie constantly accused him of made Gracie giggle through her unshed tears. "Can we have that in writing?" she asked.

The annoyed look returned. "No."

All their heads turned when they heard snuffling coming from the bassinet. Andrew stood up to check on Gabriel, his gray eyes already showing the fear of their younger brother waking up and getting into another crying fit.

"You do realize that once everyone finds out that Gabriel will settle for you, that you'll be doing most of the baby-holding until his digestive system rights itself?" Allie asked.

Andrew looked over his shoulder at her. "Why do you think I decided to take the exam?"

"What exam?" Gracie asked, her somber mood already lifting.

"Nothing," he said, reaching into the bassinet to adjust a blanket.

She slid out of Allie's lap and walked over to him. "What exam?"

He looked down at her. "A referee exam, for fencing. That way I can referee at a few events as well as fence."

"I don't know why you bother trying to lie," Gracie said. "You never fool anyone. So what exam are you really taking?"

"I'm not telling you," he said. "And I'm not going to discuss it any further."

"What exam?" came the question again, except this time it was from the direction of the doorway, and spoken by Beverly.

He turned, but he didn't say anything.

"Oh, right, _that_ one," said the doctor, moving into the room. She frowned at the quiet. "How long has he been asleep?"

Allie frowned as well. "Aren't _you_ supposed to be asleep?"

Beverly smiled at her daughter's sudden concerned frown. "You sent me to bed three hours ago. What have you been doing all this time?"

"Interrogating me, that's what," said Andrew, steadily making his way to the door. "So now I'm going to go out to the barn and practice my bladework." Then he left before any of them could question him.

After staying behind to make sure that Gracie really would be okay with them leaving that day, Allie joined her brother in the barn to train with him. Lately they'd worked together more than they had while taking lessons on Caldos, or even being on the ship's teams. She attributed it to the fact that it would be their last common project together for awhile, competing in this tournament. It would also be her last competition on a Federation-wide level and it didn't really bother her all that much that it was. She'd accomplished what she wanted to in the sport, and while she would always fence recreationally, she didn't feel the drive to win any more tournaments. That was Andrew's thing and she would gladly let him have it. An hour passed, and then another with Andrew showing no sign of wanting to taper off. "I've had enough," she said, tossing her foil into her bag and fixing a look on her twin. "You've distracted yourself enough, I think, and if you keep this up, you'll overtrain and exhaust yourself and you won't do well because you won't be able to stand up, much less fence."

Frowning, he stepped forward and turned off the target box he'd installed weeks before. "I don't see why you'd be so concerned about that."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Don't try and pull that with me. Go and distract yourself with studying or something. I just really don't feel like carting your sorry ass off the strip because your legs have suddenly refused to work out of protest."

Andrew checked the tip of his epee, making sure the screws were still in place. "I hardly think I've trained enough for that to happen."

"Which is why I'm stopping you now," she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading out the door.

While he said nothing in agreement to her statement, he did follow her back to the house without further protest.

Allie felt as if the day had passed quickly, so quickly that it must have happened in a blink between the moment when she woke up that morning and when she found herself in the front yard, watching as her parents and younger sister loaded their belongings into a ground shuttle to head to the transport station and ultimately, back to the _Enterprise_. Everything now situated in the transport except for the people, they were suddenly left with an awkward moment, four of them leaving, two of them staying, all of them not wanting to say good bye.

Robert, Marie, and Rene stepping out of the house and into the yard did nothing to stop the awkwardness.

So Gabriel started to cry, yet another Picard uncomfortable with those silent, emotional moments. Allie watched as first her father tried to settle the infant, who was desperately handed off to her mother, who had no more success than the captain. Allie reached out and grabbed her brother by the bicep and dragged him forward. "He can help," she said.

Andrew looked at her in shock. "No I can't," he said.

"Oh yes, he can," she said, directing her assertion to Beverly. "It's like magic, I swear. Hand him to Andrew and you'll see."

"Please don't," Andrew said, holding out his arms in protest.

The doctor, not one to give up any chance of peace with this new child, placed Gabriel into his brother's outstretched hands.

And like Allie he said, Gabriel shut right up once Andrew held the infant against his chest. When everyone present gave him the same incredulous look, he said, "Don't look at me like that."

"How?" asked the captain.

Beverly shot him a look. "Don't question it." She turned to her son. "Do you really have to compete next week? Can't you just come with us on the ship?"

"You only want me as a nanny, I know it," he replied.

"I intend to make full use of you when you come home," she said, holding out her own arms. "Here, I'll take him. He's been better today, I really do think the treatments are taking hold."

Andrew willingly handed the infant over. "I certainly hope so. I know you both need some real sleep."

With that break in the awkward quiet, the good byes came more easily than Allie thought they would be, and then they were gone, the shuttle disappearing down the roadway.

"This does feel strange," Andrew said as they watched the cloud of dust float back down to the ground.

"Come on," she said, turning back to the house. "You've got some studying to do."

Robert nodded in agreement, herding Andrew in front of him. "I'm going to see to it that you pass your first time," he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "So maybe you won't turn out like your father after all."

"How did you know?" Andrew asked, turning a gray eyed glare onto his uncle, then switching it to his sister. "Oh, wait. I know. Nevermind." Then he went into the house.

As he'd promised, Robert kept on Andrew's case for the next few days, pointing him back in the direction of the house if he wandered out to the winery to try and help with the beginning of the barreling. Rene ran between the two of them, happy to help out his father, but intensely curious about everything Andrew was studying, even the math that had tripped up the captain in his first attempt.

By the time the day he was to head to Paris for the testing rolled around, Andrew declared that he and mathematics would never have a civil relationship again. Now that she wasn't being used as a cover story, Allie accompanied him without protest and went to go study the large center where they would hold the tournament while he tested. When she met her brother afterwards, she didn't ask, she knew he didn't want to talk about it, that he wanted to forget entirely that he'd even taken the test until the results ran up and reminded him.

So she left it alone and they concentrated on fencing, and only on fencing, when the next day came.

Allie sat on a folding chair at the end of the elevated piste, ignoring the roaring of the crowd in the stands. She'd positioned herself off to the side on the floor below the strip, where she could easily see all the bout's actions and coach her brother. The audience here was exponentially larger than the audience had been at the Vendange competition and her brother had managed to get himself into the same sort of situation in the gold medal bout for epee. She hadn't managed a repeat performance herself and had been eliminated in the round of thirty-two.

"Halt," said the director, calling an end to the first three minute period of fencing. Removing his mask and wiping the sweat from his flushed face, Andrew walked to his end of the strip.

Allie chucked him a water bottle. "Listen," she said.

He frowned. "To what?"

She smiled. "Exactly." The crowd wasn't chanting any names and she wanted him to keep that quiet in his mind. "As for your fencing, you've gotten ahead of him, don't change what you're doing until he catches on. You don't need to show him what else you've got yet."

"Right," he said, nodding.

The director summoned the fencers back. "En garde," he commanded, signaling with his hands at the same time. "Prêt? Allez."

Immediately, the cheering began, much as it had in the prior tournament. But this time, it wasn't anything related to her and her fencing, her bout hadn't been exciting at all. But the _Enterprise_ team had a reputation in the fencing world, and everyone knew who Andrew was. Allie just hoped he realized as the name chanting began that they weren't cheering for him because he was the son of a legendary captain, but because he was an incredibly good fencer and team captain. He was his own person, like he wanted to be, and it didn't matter how much he might take after their father.

Deja vu blanketed her senses while she watched helplessly as Andrew didn't make any necessary adjustments as his opponent closed the points gap between them. "Stop being an idiot!" she said under her breathe when the action drifted towards the end of the strip. She'd long abandoned her seat as the score crept higher, 12-12, 13-13. There wouldn't be a chance for her to coach him again, he'd have to do this on his own, win or lose, pass or fail.

Something changed.

Andrew's footwork became more complicated and sure, his shoulders relaxed and his body relayed a certain confidence and ease. The trap he laid for his opponent was so well set that Allie didn't see it herself until Andrew's green light signaled a touch.

Both fencers were set at the en garde lines again.

"Allez," had scant left the director's mouth when Andrew lunged explosively and quickly and his arms and legs seemed impossibly long as he hit his opponent in the toe for a valid fifteenth touch.

Andrew's mask came off and he grinned widely, the triumph he felt having barely anything to do with the bout and competition he'd just won, and everything to do with his confidence and identity. He hadn't fallen apart despite being acutely aware of the last name emblazoned in blue stenciled capital letters on the back of his jacket.

"You're still an idiot," she said, once her brother had saluted and shook hands again with the director and his opponent. "But how did you change it up? How did you get yourself to relax and not think about the crowd?"

"Actually, I remembered that I'm supposed to get the results of my exams today," he said, tossing his sweat soaked mask into his bag.

She threw the water bottle at him. "How the hell did that make you relax? It's kept you updated for days."

"At the time, it wasn't exactly important what my results of the exam were, but I couldn't really think about the bout after I remembered." He shrugged. "Whatever works."

He packed up his gear and they left the venue straight after the medal ceremony. Back at the house, Marie, Robert and Rene had already started in on the critical point of the fermentation process, a step that was exquisitely timed and couldn't be set aside for anything, Federation Cup or no. Andrew only had one more day with them, then he would be leaving too, heading back to his life in the stars while she kept her feet firmly on the ground. They had the transport leave them near the end of the dirt road so they could stroll to the house, breathing in the fresh Earth's air as long as they could together.

Winter, vines, the last vestiges of the harvest and the new season coming upon them carried in the slight wind. Then they caught a sharp, acrid smell that stopped them mid-stride. "Do you smell that?" Andrew asked.

She frowned as he already was. "Yeah, I think it's smoke."

"Were we planning on burning any brush today?"

"Not that I'm aware of and at this point, Robert would've told me. I wonder if—"

She cut herself with silence and bolted towards the vineyard, gear forgotten in the middle of the road. Of the same mind, Andrew had dropped his things as well and bolted with her, already in-step with her quick gait. They rounded the bend where their first day there, Gracie and Rene had run away from the others, already friends and giggling together about the adults. They zipped past the empty house and were greeted not by a smiling Marie, but billowing black smoke pouring from the windows of the winery. Screams followed on the back of the dark hazy monsters.

With still no words passing between them, Allie and Andrew plunged straight into the burning building, covering their mouths with their shirts. As the smoke took her up in its embrace, she lost sight of her twin in the inky darkness. She shouted for him, getting no reply, holding her arms in front of her, searching in the silence of the smoke and the searing screams, hoping to bump into a body to pull free of the fire.

_I've lost him, _she thought_. I've got to find him. _But her hands and feet collided with nothing but the writhing smoke, while her throat constricted against the the assault from the acrid air, robbing her of her voice.

* * *

He'd lost sight of his twin sister and he couldn't even give a good attempt at trying to see her at all, because every time he tried to open his eyes wide enough to take in enough light to see through the dim smoke, that same smoke stung his eyes in return, causing them to tear up. Moaning caught his attention and a body nearly sent him tumbling to the ground. Blindly reaching down, he grabbed the clothing covering the body and dragged it out, heading towards the less dim area, a lighter doorway of hope at the end of the burning building.

He crossed the threshold and his eyes began to clear of smoke and the resulting tears, and he found himself dragging his aunt to safety on the grass, well clear of the building. His mind ran, abound with thoughts. _I have to go back and get my sister. I have to go back and get Robert and Rene. I have to get all of them out of that fire. I have to. I must. I've got to. _Andrew's feet turned towards the building and he swung his arms up to get himself into a good start in running into the building, when a hand reached out and grabbed him by the ankle, tripping him face-first into the ground.

"What the hell?" he shouted, frantic worry clobbering his normally even toned voice. His arms pushed him up and away from the dirt, small rocks sticking to the flesh of his face, road rash already forming on his chin and right cheek. It was his aunt's hand that held his ankle tightly still, her green eyes wide and unbelieving, already wishing reality away. "Let go!" he shouted at her, anger blinding him as well as the smoke had. "They're all still in there! I have to go back!"

"You can't go back," she said, her voice roughed and worn down into scratching nothingness by the dark smoke.

"The hell I can't!" His fingers worked at hers, trying to pry her away long enough to run into the building.

"You'll die too," she said, head already slipping backwards, unconsciousness calling her softly.

"No one's dead!" his shouts defied the reality that Marie already saw, the reality that stung at her eyes more than fire and smoke ever could.

Her choice had already been made and the fire had already made its choice, unrelenting, unforgiving, and she couldn't let it take anyone else. The rest of them, they had already been taken. "Listen," she said to her nephew. "Listen."

He didn't shout a reply and the crackling of the fire filled the space in between them as her fingers slipped away from his ankle, freeing him.

But there was no point in his running now. The screams had stopped, all of them, and only the fire spoke now. He lay stretched out on the dirt of the path, eyes gazing blankly at the rapidly burning building, now facing reality. He felt it, it was gone, that connection he'd had all his life and never really questioned until now. All he felt was his burning lungs and an incredible tightness in his chest and nothing at all from the presence he'd had with him since before he'd been born. The stability and familiarity were gone, that warmth and knowledge that connected them, severed. No amount of shouting or yelling or violently flailing against the intangible realm of the universe that had made this decision could change the fact that he'd lost his sister.

That he'd lost his twin.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

All the matters of his ship had returned to his mind once he'd put on the uniform again. The material was the comfort of an old and beloved habit, both in clothing and in ways of going about things. He'd read over the communiques from his first officer the night before, everything would be in order when he returned. Lieutenant Worf, as they'd discussed before he and his family had left for France, would be receiving a promotion a few days after their return. Will had come up with an interesting idea of holding the promotion ceremony on a holodeck recreation of one of the ancient _Enterprise_ sailing vessels. The captain had given Will the go-ahead to create the program, finding it just as interesting. He only wished Allie and Andrew could have given it a run through, since both of them knew how to sail as well. But they'd left them behind on the vineyard, their lives already starting to diverge from one another even though they'd all barely starting converging. Though they had only been a family for not even a year, the shuttle on the trip to the transport station felt oddly empty, as if people were missing. Which, in truth, they were. He hadn't thought he'd grow so used to their presence so quickly.

Now he, Beverly, Gracie, and Gabriel waited in line at the Paris transport station for the final leg of their journey back to the ship. His younger daughter gripped his hand tightly, her eyes following every little action every person made in the station. Since it was rather crowded, it kept her fairly busy and a bit anxious. Once they'd left the vineyard behind and her older brother and sister fell out of sight, Gracie had been eager to return to the ship as quickly as she could. The wait was testing her patience.

Finally, she looked up at him. "Why can't we just skip to the head of the line?" she asked. "You're a captain and you need to get back to your ship."

"Not urgently," he replied. "We'll wait just like everyone else. What's got you in such a hurry?" Usually she was more sensitive to the needs of others ahead of her own.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I just am." Her mind skipped to something else. "How soon after taking the exam will Andrew get his results?"

"He should know by the next day," said the captain.

"I take it we all know he's taking the exam?" asked Beverly.

Gracie rolled her eyes. "I don't see how he thinks he's fooling anyone."

The line moved forward. "Just let him have his delusions, dear," said the doctor.

The little girl giggled. They reached the front of the line and Picard handed a padd over to the young ensign on duty. A few steps up to the transporter pad, and then they found themselves back aboard the _Enterprise_. Commander Riker and Counselor Troi stood in front of the pad to greet them.

"Welcome aboard," said Riker.

Deanna immediately moved forward to Beverly and pulled her into a hug. "It's good to see you again," she said and then stepped away and let her eyes drift to the now awake infant in the doctor's arms. "Now let me see him."

Gabriel's eyes had opened wide and were now focused on the new person standing in front of him, the stark curiosity evident in his green eyes. Beverly gently handed the baby over to her friend. The boy continued his recent run of cooperation and kept quiet aside from a few snuffles against the counselor's shoulder. Then he decided to keep his head up and looked around the room, first at Will, then back up at the stranger holding him, but not once did he fuss. He hadn't done so since the last time Andrew had held him, right before they all left on the shuttle. The captain had thought his new son would be fussy with strangers, as he was fussy even with his family, but now he seemed to be proving him wrong. Not that he was going to complain or question it in the least.

Deanna turned to Riker. "Would you like to hold him?"

The first officer looked in askance first at the counselor, and then at the child in question. His look then turned to something of the same look Andrew continually gave his younger brother. "No," said Will. "I think I'm all set with holding babies."

The captain couldn't resist ribbing his first officer, especially since it had been so long since he'd done so. "It's not so bad, Number One," he said. "At least once you figure out that by merely holding them you won't break them in two, some of their intimidating factors go away."

Riker looked from his captain to the child and raised both his eyebrows. "You think he's _intimidating_?" he asked.

Picard nodded. "You wouldn't think someone that small would have so much control over your life, but once you have one, you realize that the supposition was entirely incorrect."

Gabriel turned his head again at the sound of his father's voice and managed to look directly at him. The captain found himself immediately smiling at the boy, unable to stop the compulsion. Beverly had told him the night before that their son was around the age when infants started to smile, a real smile, especially when they recognized their parents and siblings. So now he kept looking for it, believing his wife when she said it was always a thrilling moment in watching your child grow. While the boy didn't smile when he recognized his father, he did begin to squirm in Deanna's arms and hold his arms towards him. He'd been surprised at how quickly the child had developed these skills, but Beverly had explained that human infants did tend to develop faster than they used to. Picard shifted his carry bag over his shoulder so the bag part rested on his lower back, then took the boy when the counselor handed him over.

Riker shook his head. "Things you never thought you'd see."

"You should have seen him change a diaper for the first time," Gracie said, using the chance to run over to her tall friend for a hug.

Riker obliged and picked her up in a big bear hug. "Why? Did you watch?"

"All of them did," said the captain. "I seem to recall a lot of hysterical laughter."

"He wouldn't let me take any photographs," Gracie said, giving Will a very serious look. "None at all."

"Absolutely not," Picard said. "I won't have images like that getting around the fleet." While the others might think it was for his own vanity, not wanting photographs of him changing his infant son's diaper, it was something much deeper and entirely unrelated to vanity. He wanted to protect his family as well as he could from any public life. They already had a hard time keeping their private life private, as he was the flagship's captain. It also didn't help that Starfleet insisted on considering him a legend, even teaching his tactics and strategies and moments of first contact in Academy courses and he'd yet to even retire. Practically anywhere within the Federation he was instantly recognizable. Beverly wasn't much far behind. Within the Fleet, she was well-known, and even more of a stellar standout in the medical field. Practically anywhere they went, there would be people wanting a glimpse into their private lives, especially where their children were concerned. Their marriage had been quite a hot ticket on the newsfeeds, as had the appearance of their three children, and then the news of another to be born.

So anything about Gabriel, as well as any information they could protect from others regarding Andrew, Allie, and Gracie was kept under strict secured access. He had every confidence in his crew to keep his children away from public eye, and Riker had meetings with new crewmembers about the captain's private life, and especially those of his children. So far, they hadn't come across any trouble, and he preferred to keep it that way.

"I would've paid good money to see that," said Will.

"If you had told me beforehand, I would have invited you," Beverly replied. "Adding to the audience couldn't have done any harm."

"It could have harmed my career," Will said. "Captain, when you like to be briefed on the ship's status?"

Picard nearly replied for it to be first thing the following morning, then remembered that in ship's time, it was only late morning. "Fifteen hundred hours in my ready room," he said. Mid-afternoon would give him time enough to settle into his quarters, at least enough so that he could catch up on his ship's affairs face to face with his first officer instead of over comm channels. He would also need to check in with Necheyev and get the ship underway on her next mission. Of course, he would need that next mission assignment from Necheyev anyway, so contacting her went without question.

Riker nodded. "Yes, sir. Now, everything you took with you to France has been brought back to your quarters, aside from what you carried on your person." He frowned for a moment. "Where's Conal?"

Beverly answered. "He's staying in La Barre with Andrew, he'll come back with him next week."

"It feels strange with Allie and Andrew not traveling with you," Riker said, placing Gracie back on the deck. "You said they'll be returning to the ship next week?"

Beverly finally stepped off the transporter pad. "Andrew will be coming back next week. Allie was accepted to a veterinary school in Paris and will be living on the vineyard while she attends school. She'll only be coming back for visits now." A thread of sadness had woven its way through her voice, allowing the soft regret of only being directly involved in her eldest daughter's life for such a short period time. He recognized it because it was the same feeling he had about the situation. At the same time, another thread ran beside the sadness, one that had them both feeling proud of her and happy for her in gaining admittance to the school's program.

The conversation continued as they left the transporter room and headed for the captain and doctor's quarters. "How are they taking it?" Troi asked.

"As well as could be expected. But in France, it was all still in the theoretical, so how they'll really take it won't show until Andrew's here on the ship and Allie's still on Earth and both of them realize that they're separated for a significant period of time for the first time in their lives. Reality tends to hit harder than theory," said the doctor. "I think it will be easier for Allie because she's the one who chose to stay for school and she'll be incredibly busy between schoolwork and work on the vineyard. Andrew, though, if he doesn't keep himself busy, he might have problems."

The captain raised an eyebrow. "Might?" He could still hear the echoing footsteps of his son's silent departure from the barn's second floor after their last meaningful conversation.

Deanna looked at him. "I take it you've already had a run-in with Andrew?"

"You could say that," he said.

"He'll be busy once he goes to the Academy," Gracie said, saving her father from further questioning from the ship's counselor.

"He finally decided on going?" Riker directed his question to the little girl.

"Yeah," she said. "He's taking the exam next week, the day before the Federation Cup. He also seems to think that no one knows he's taking the exam. But everyone knows."

"Why? Did you tell them?" asked Will.

"No." First she glared at him, then broke into a grin. "Nobody asked me."

The turbolift doors opened and deposited them on deck eight, where they had a short walk to their quarters. Once inside, Will bade a good-bye in order to get the last reports from various department heads before his briefing with the captain. The counselor stayed for awhile, speaking with Beverly about what sort of schedule she would have in sickbay. She had planned to return to full duty, but until Gabriel's sleep patterns became more predictable and his lactase activity approached normal levels, a full duty schedule would be tremendously difficult to maintain.

In the midst of the conversation, Gracie received a visit from friends and happily left with them, leaving the adults behind to their boring adult conversations. Her timely departure allowed the adults more freedom of speech. "I just don't think it's fair to ask the ship's nursery staff to deal with Gabriel until he's within the realm of normal fussiness for an infant," Beverly said.

"He seems fine so far," said Troi, glancing in the direction of the room where the infant was sleeping.

"This is out of the realm of ordinary for him," said the captain as he took a seat in an armchair. "This might be the quietest, most cooperative day he's had since being born."

"So he's improving." Deanna crossed her arms and looked at Beverly. "And since he's improving, it means he's within the norms for his age in terms of his emotional reactions. What I sense from him is also normal, nothing indicating unhappiness or discomfort beyond what an infant typically feels. So what's the real reason?"

The doctor frowned. "The real reason for what?"

Picard felt better hearing those words from Troi, that their son didn't feel unhappy or wasn't comfortable, that he was healthy and normal. He was also glad that Deanna was interrogating Beverly and not him, though he was certain he'd be next. There wouldn't be escaping it, not when the counselor was of a mind to get significant information from people. There where times when he felt like she'd missed her calling as an interrogator and had somehow mistakenly been assigned to be a ship's counselor. Of course, that was all untrue, she was very good at counseling and he'd have no other on his ship.

"Beverly." Deanna's look had gotten serious, her dark eyes becoming even darker with concern.

The doctor fidgeted for a moment, staving off speaking for as long as she could. "Nana isn't here," she said, another thread of sadness sewn through her voice, this one carrying a stripe of heady fear. "I mean, with my other children, she either took care of them, or in Wesley's case, she was there when I needed advice. And now she's not. So I honestly don't know if I'm any good at this at all, at least not without her. And I'm afraid to find out."

"Well," Troi said, then gave a long pause, seemingly in deep thought. "You could always call _my_ mother for advice."

Another pause, and then Beverly laughed, and this time, it was sincere. "You certainly know what to say to lighten the mood," she said. "I do know this fear is irrational, especially since I teach new mothers so many of the skills they need. But it's like trying something for the first time without a safety net."

"How about this." Deanna leaned forward on her elbows as she spoke. "You'll be on full duty, but half of your duty time will be spent in research and not in your clinical rotation in sickbay. That way, your time will be much more flexible and you can do much of your work here if you need to stay with Gabriel. Then once he's stabilized with his sleeping schedule and with his lactase activity, you can return to your full clinical rotation. Unless, of course, you break some new ground with your research and decide to stick with that." Troi sat back.

Beverly nodded. "That sounds doable." She looked towards Picard. "Does that work for what the ship needs?"

"I don't see why not," he said, quickly running through the ship's staffing in his mind. Normally they had a much more clear divide between their work and home personas, but situations changed, much as theirs had. No longer could either of them abdicate from being ship's captain or chief medical officer just because they were in their shared quarters. "What about my schedule? I'm sure I could arrange my duty schedule differently to work with Gabriel."

"Except you haven't got the medical background to deal with the enzymatic issues," Beverly said, in a tone that told him she wasn't rejecting his offer of help out of hand and that it had nothing to do with gender roles in why she had rejected it. Instead, it had to do with medical expertise. She went on to explain exactly what he'd heard in her words. "In fact, if I weren't a doctor myself, we would have to have a nurse around much of the time with him until he stabilized. So I don't see a need in depriving the ship of two officers, especially when one wouldn't be as much help as he'd want to be."

He sighed. "It just seems that you're being pushed into some ancient gender role of the mother always taking care of the infant. While I know that you're not, it's hard to make myself truly believe it, especially when you go to half clinical duty while I keep my same duty schedule." He was very careful not to bring up the issue of breastfeeding, as that had been part of the original intent when she'd decided to go to half-duty on returning, before they had diagnosed what was going on with their infant son. As she had told him, he didn't have the right equipment to stay home with Gabriel. But now with having had to switch to bottle feeding to continue the process of establishing his enzyme activity, the ability to feed the boy would no longer be an issue. Yet he wouldn't bring it up because he knew his wife was still incredibly sensitive over having to switch, another astonishingly instinctive feeling he'd witnessed in her, that maternal drive.

"I know you'll help when you're here and whenever else you can," Beverly said, giving him a warm smile.

He nodded.

They finished up the myriad other details with the counselor and then he had he meeting with Riker, not thinking that it would take so long in their quarters, and they'd barely gotten anything physical done, just a lot of talking. More talking happened in the days that followed, communiques from Andrew and Allie, getting the ship underway to her next mission, reconnecting with all his department heads and various crewmembers. There was also the question of Worf's promotion ceremony at hand and when it would be scheduled. Between picking up and dropping off diplomats and two nebula surveys, they didn't manage to fit it in until the end of the following week.

But the end result in using Will's program had been worth it and it only solidified the captain's approval of the program as he breathed in the fresh ocean air on the deck of an old _Enterprise_. The time-appropriate uniforms had been Troi's idea and Picard was becoming certain that the counselor was finding more and more insidious ways to psychologically torture her fellow crew members. He disliked this uniform's collar as much as he disliked his dress uniform's collar and Beverly had taken much amusement in his struggles with it, which only served to make him more frustrated with it.

Which, of course, made her more amused.

A few crewmen struck up a drumroll and Worf was escorted from the brig below deck. He struggled a bit, but only for show, because if the Klingon truly decided to escape, he would do so without pause, and easily. Riker ostentatiously unrolled a scroll and read off a series of criminal charges—all of which were actually commendations on Worf's service while on the _Enterprise_. Riker's speech came to an end and a silence fell over the deck of the sailing vessel, the only sound the lapping of the waves as they kissed the hull.

The captain spoke, "There can be only one punishment for such crimes," he looked straight at his chief security officer. "I hereby promote you to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, with all the rights and privileges thereto. And may God have mercy on your soul."

The crew on board burst into a round of cheers and applause.

Worf snapped to attention. "Thank you, sir."

Before Picard had a chance to welcome the Klingon, Riker shouted, "Extend the plank!" At Riker's command, the crew pushed and pulled Worf to the side of the ship while another group extended a long wooden plank.

The captain frowned. While he knew this was another old naval tradition, he didn't think Riker would actually implement it. He glanced at Riker, who stood beside him. "Don't you think you're taking this a bit too far, Number One?" he asked, already thinking that he should've known better.

Will grinned. "When we went to ancient Rome for Deanna's promotion, we threw her to the lions, remember?"

That he did. He raised an eyebrow at looked from his first officer over to Troi and decided that this element of Worf's promotion had been the counselor's idea. The crew managed to shove Worf out onto the plank and he cautiously made his way to the middle, the plank visibly straining and bending under the weight of the tall Klingon.

"Wait!" Worf's shout hushed the crew.

All eyes went to him.

"I can't swim," he said, the most meek Picard had heard Worf ever sound in his entire time on the ship. He hadn't thought a Klingon was even capable of sounding meek.

Beverly graced her friend with a smile. "Don't worry, Worf," she said. "The safety protocols are engaged. The computer won't let you down." She glanced down over the railing and into the deep blue water below. "But the sharks are quite convincing."

"Besides, you have to get your hat or the promotion won't stand," said Deanna, pointing to the hat bearing the new rank insignia now dangled four meters over the end of the plank.

With a look of distinct determination, Worf crept out to the end of the plank, leapt, and snatched the prize in his large hand. He roared triumphantly at the crew gathered to watch.

"Computer!" said Riker. "Remove plank!"

The plank disappeared and sent Worf straight down into the water, the resulting splash reaching the deck of the ship. Laughter nearly covered Worf's indignant shouting from below. Picard glanced at his first officer. "I believe that's 'retract plank', not 'remove plank,'" he said.

"Right," said Will. "My mistake." His dancing blue eyes said otherwise.

Below them, Data stood at the railing with Troi and Geordi, watching as a rope ladder was thrown over the side to Worf. Ever puzzled with human behavior and action, the android turned to Deanna for clarification. "Counselor, I must confess I am uncertain as to why pushing someone into freezing, shark-infested water is amusing."

"It's all in good fun, Data," she replied, putting a hand on his arm.

"Ah," he said, then reached out and pushed the counselor over the rail and into the water. A shriek escaped Troi's throat before she hit the ocean. Her shriek turned into angry shouting when she came up for air.

The captain made eye contact with Beverly, raising his eyebrows as she did the same.

"That wasn't funny," Geordi said to his friend.

Picard hid his own smile as Beverly struggled to hide hers and was mostly unsuccessful. She retrieved a towel from below and wrapped it around Deanna when she came back aboard, glaring death threats to Data with her eyes in between the shivers.

With Worf and Troi back aboard the ship, Riker got the ship back underway for a little journey across the ocean. "All hands make sail! Raise up tacks and stand by the braces!" Will placed his hands on the wheel in front of Picard.

Heady with the scent of the ocean and seeing Beverly truly smile again, Picard felt the comfort in the idyllic nature of the times of the ship that carried them. "Imagine what it was like, Will," he said. "No engines...no computers...just the wind, the sea, and the stars to guide you."

Riker shook his head and added his own commentary. "Bad food, brutal discipline," he paused and looked over at Deanna, soaked, bedraggled, and still glaring at Data. "No women."

The captain had to admit he did fully agree with Will's last reason about this time not being idyllic anymore. If they had lived in those times, he wouldn't be able to travel on the same ship with his wife and children. Even a scant twenty years ago, he wouldn't have been able to travel with them, much as Jack Crusher had had to leave his wife and son behind on Earth or other postings while he traveled on the _Stargazer_. Though he'd had serious misgivings on the design of the Galaxy-class vessel in allowing family to accompany the crew, the captain recognized that they had been wrong, and this development was welcome over the emptiness of before. He caught Beverly's eyes again and smiled at her, sharing those emotions with her again. No, he wouldn't give this up without a fight, even at the call of the wind, the sea, and the stars.

"Bridge to Captain Picard."

Frowning, he replied to the comm. "Picard here."

"There is a personal message for you from Earth."

His frown deepened in irritation at being interrupted. "Put it through down here." Then he looked at his first officer. "But the best thing about a life at sea was that they couldn't reach you." Then he moved to the stern of the vessel, giving out a few orders as he went. Once he'd reached the end of the ship, he asked the computer for the arch. Then the illusion of freedom was broken and the reality of space travel, the holodeck, and not being on the ocean hit with the appearance of the doorway to the corridor and the control panel recessed in the wall. Picard keyed in a few commands, entered a clearance code, and called the message up on the screen.

It was text-only, no voice or video with it.

—Begin Transmission—

To: Picard, Jean-Luc. Captain. Commanding Officer, USS _Enterprise_

From: Picard, Andrew. Federation Civilian. Sol III. _In Transit._

_Winery entirely destroyed by fire. Cause of fire is unknown and under investigation by the authorities. The most current report is linked to this communique. I am underway from Earth in a transport to the Amargosa Observatory, where the _Enterprise _is scheduled for survey support. I am to transfer to the ship from there._

—End Transmission—

Picard keyed in another command to bring up the attached report from the European Union authorities. Andrew had sent his message while already aboard the transport vessel, so nothing could be terribly wrong or he would have sent something sooner. At most, the year's vintages were lost and they would have to rebuild the winery. Another tap and the report populated on the screen.

—Preliminary Report—

European Alliance Fire Investigation

Case Number: EAF47988

Stardate: 48630.2

Summary of Incident:

_Investigators responded to Picard Vineyard, La Barre, France at the request of the atmospheric alert system. The dispatch time was 1600 hours, arrival at the scene was 1605 hours. Investigators observed a wood-frame structure, single story, functional winery. Entire structure was in flames upon arrival. The fire took two departments three hours to extinguish. Cause of fire is suspicious. Exact cause is unknown and pending investigation. Three fatalities resulted from the fire: Robert Picard; Rene Picard; Natalie Picard. There are two survivors of the fire: Marie Picard; Andrew Picard. Notification has been sent to next of kin. This electronic report will be updated daily as the investigation continues. _

—End Report—

The captain read the linked report once, twice, a third time, wishing he were wrong, that he'd read the report incorrectly, switched around some of the nouns, anything to change the outcome. Anything to wipe away the three fatalities. Instead, the words stayed on the screen, burning and tearing at his retinas with their reality, each time shocking him no less than the first.

He reached out with trembling fingers and shut the terminal off, the screen going right to black. His eyes shut of their own volition as they struggled to make the visions stop, but because the visions were from his own nightmares, shutting his eyes did nothing against the continued visual battering his mind had decided to give him. The questions poured through his head. _Had they screamed? Did they suffer? _And the fire that had extinguished their lives extinguished the hope he'd found on the vineyard in the past two months. Again, he wished that it hadn't happened, but no matter how far he might run, reality would always be there, snapping at his heels.

Knowing he couldn't maintain his captain's mask, not in the face of this news, he decided to retreat to his ready room. He heard Troi move quickly across the deck behind him. "Captain, are you all right?"

His eyes held ice in them when he faced her. "Yes, I'm fine." Short and clipped, he'd nearly snapped at her. When he spoke next, it was a snap, but directed at the computer. "Computer, exit."

The captain walked away, thinking that no one would know he was running away from reality, as it was the holodeck he was leaving behind. Except Beverly had watched him as he'd read the message and as he'd read the message again and again. She'd heard his short tempered response to Deanna. So when he left the holodeck without another word, she followed.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Beverly Picard first went straight to the bridge, knowing her husband well enough that he would think of his ready room immediately if he wanted to conduct an emotional retreat. When the turbolift doors opened, she noticed a contingent of cowed and entirely too quiet officers manning the stations. With a frown, she stepped out and headed towards the ready room.

"He's not in there, Doctor," said the lieutenant at the Ops station.

"But he was just here, wasn't he." It wasn't a question. She could tell from the expressions on the crewmember's faces.

"Unfortunately," said an ensign as she rounded the horseshoe at the top of the bridge. "I don't I've ever seen an officer find so many faults in so little time."

"Ensign." The lieutenant's voice indicated a warning that her subordinate was speaking a bit too freely about the captain in front of a senior officer.

Beverly waved a hand. "It's fine, I won't report you for complaining about your captain, every ensign does it once and awhile. What's more important is: do any of you know where he was headed?"

The lieutenant shook her head. "No, Doctor. He gave us all a good reaming, stepped into his ready room for a couple minutes, then came straight back out. I don't know where he went. Can't you locate him through the ship's comm?"

She'd tried that. Somehow, Jean-Luc had masked his communicator's signal, indicating that he was damned determined to be left alone. "No," she said, not explaining the situation. There were things the crew didn't need to hear, and that their captain was in something of an emotional snit was one of them. "Thank you."

"If he comes back, should we tell him you're looking for him?" asked the ensign.

"Please." Then the doctor went back into the 'lift. The reaction she'd seen him have had frightened her. Normally, he had more control over what he allowed to show in public and whatever he'd read on that terminal screen had shaken him deeply. Fear gripped her that whatever had shaken him would shake her just as much. Then frustration wound its way around the fear, squeezing it into the beginnings of anger because he wasn't telling her what was going on.

"Deck twelve," she said. "And I'll be damned if I'm going to chase after him."

"Please repeat command."

The doctor cast a glare upwards toward the disembodied feminine voice of the ship's computer. "_You_ go to deck twelve."

The turbolift moved and she continued to stew. She wanted to find out what Jean-Luc's message had contained, but she also didn't want to play this game anymore. She'd thought it was over after their last disagreement over this sort of thing, especially when all of their time in La Barre had passed without any incidents of this nature. Of course, when they'd been in France, they hadn't come up against anything he would feel the need to protect her from. There had been the news about Gabriel and his alactasia but they'd found out about that together. There hadn't been time or the opportunity for either of them to hide it from the other. Not that hiding anything going on with their infant son would be easy, as Gabriel made it known quite loudly when he wasn't feeling well. At least for the past few days, he'd done well enough that she hadn't been summoned down to the nursery to try and settle him.

The 'lift stopped and she stepped determinedly to sickbay. When she walked through sickbay's doors, she was greeted by a shivering Deanna Troi sitting on one of her biobeds. "I thought you would be with the captain," Deanna said.

"I would if I could find him," Beverly replied, grabbing one of the medical tricorders on her way over to the bed. "But he's decided that he wants to be alone and has taken steps to mask his whereabouts on the ship. Since I'm not seven years old, I'm not going to play hide and seek with him, so he can do whatever he wants and I'm not going to go looking for him." The doctor popped out the handheld scanner extension from its slot and starting scanning her friend.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I think I'm sensing some bitterness from you," Troi said, smirking through her shivers.

Beverly dropped her hands and stopped the scan. "Do you want to warm up or not? You know that every time you say something that obvious I'm trying not to make some sort of sarcastic remark. Leaving the door wide open like that isn't nice at all. Besides, you should be focusing your fantastic empathic abilities on figuring out what's going on with Jean-Luc and what the hell was in that message from Earth." She resumed the scan.

"You're frightened."

"You think?" she replied, then frowned as she read the information from the scan. "You know as well as I do that not much will make Jean-Luc Picard visibly shaken."

"And you're trying to distract yourself now."

"And I should have known better than to try and distract myself by helping my empathic ship's counselor of a friend who won't stop asking questions." Troi really had brought back every emotion she'd managed to shove down underneath her rising anger. "Your body temperature still needs to come up a bit more, it's the Betazoid in you. Doctor's orders are for you to take a hot shower. Meanwhile, I'm going to change out of this silly outfit." Not waiting for her friend's response, Beverly headed toward the locker room area where the kept spare uniforms and sets of scrubs for both scheduled and emergency surgeries. Once she'd gotten back into a normal duty uniform, she started feeling somewhat less apprehensive.

Somewhat.

When she came out of the locker room, Deanna was still there sitting on the biobed. Beverly frowned. "You're disobeying doctor's orders."

"And you're hiding how troubled you are."

She crossed her arms. "How about you go take that shower and then you can feel free to come back down here and interrogate me to your heart's content." The doctor glanced over at the room she'd just left. "You can even use the shower we have here. And yes, it has water, it isn't just sonic."

Deanna slid off the biobed. "I won't be long."

"Right." Beverly checked the duty roster on the main status panel and then went into her office. If she used her time wisely, she could get the reports for the day done and out of the way while Gabriel was still down in the nursery. They were scheduled to keep him for another two hours. As she settled into her chair, she noticed her own message light was blinking. Puzzled, she reached out and keyed in her access code to display the message on her terminal and watched as a text-only message appeared. As the message began to scroll up, she idly tapped a stylus on the top of her desk.

—Begin Transmission—

To: Picard, Beverly. Commander. Chief Medical Officer, USS _Enterprise_

From: European Alliance Fire Investigation Unit. Sol III.

_I deeply regret to inform you on behalf of the European Alliance Fire Investigation Unit that your daughter, Natalie Picard, died on stardate 48630.2 as a result of smoke inhalation while trapped by a structure fire on the Picard Vineyard in La Barre, France, European Alliance, Sol III. Please accept my most heartfelt sympathy in your great loss. _

_We hope we can be of assistance to you in your bereavement. We will transport the remains to any place you designate once they have been released pending the arson investigation. Officer Grégory Gallas has been assigned to give you every possible assistance. _

_The incident remains under investigation and you will updated upon its resolution. A link to the report has been attached to this message and it will automatically update when new information is available._

Henrik Larsson, Chief of Operations, European Alliance Fire Investigation

—End Transmission—

She dropped her stylus. It remained on the deck underneath her chair even after the Federation symbol appeared over the message, then faded away into a darkened screen. She felt absolutely rooted to her position, she couldn't think to move. She didn't even want to, because if she moved in any way, it could confirm the reality of what she'd just read. Her fingers rested on the desk but she couldn't feel them, everything had gone numb in an attempt to shove all her emotions away in a last ditch effort to stave the onslaught of reality.

They lived in the twenty-fourth century. Their species had mastered the elements on their own planet, discovered how to control the weather patterns. They had long ago understood that fire was not an element and the idea of the classical elements had been scrapped due to that understanding.

But it hadn't been the fire that killed her. It had been the smoke, inhaling that dark poisonous cloud laced with carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosgene. The cloud would feel like fire itself as it was breathed in and out, carrying the temperature of the flames that produced it, searing lungs and throat and mouth with thermal damage that lessened the body's ability to fight off the lulling effects of carbon monoxide.

"Beverly?"

The counselor's lilting voice vaguely penetrated the doctor's enveloping of dark thoughts. Beverly answered but what she said wasn't directed towards anyone. "I don't think she would have screamed," she said. "She would have been unconscious by the time the fire got to her."

Her name called again, this time from a person much more alarmed. "Beverly?"

Even as she told herself that there wouldn't have been any screams, those very same screams echoed in her head. Then the images came, rapidly and without any chance of stopping them, each patient she had ever treated with burns or symptoms of smoke inhalation. With only smoke inhalation, there would still be burns around the mouth and nose, singed nose hairs, even the saliva would be burned and riddled with carbon. And the burns themselves, often third and fourth degree, insensate, charred, often leaving the patient unidentifia—

"Beverly." This time, Deanna had placed a firm hand on her friend's shoulder, a grip meant to bring the doctor back to the present from wherever she had gone in her mind.

She blinked and looked at the counselor, moving only her eyes. "Deanna."

Troi took one of the other chairs and sat next to the doctor, never letting her hand leave her friend's shoulder. "What happened?"

Beverly looked away from her friend and back at the terminal. The words came immediately to her head: _my daughter died in a fire._ But she said nothing aloud, she couldn't, her throat felt as tight and scalded as her daughter's must have before the carbon monoxide took her consciousness away. "There was a fire." She'd spoken the words but they took her by as much surprise as it did the other person in the room. The voice that spoke them seemed disembodied, a stranger with no intonation or emotion left in her soul. That same disembodied stranger moved her hand and and turned the terminal screen back on to display the message she'd read only minutes ago. A lifetime ago, because before that message, her daughter had been alive.

"My god." Deanna's comment was a whisper, no more. But it didn't need more, shocked silences screamed enough of their own, so much that a whisper became a shout that silenced the cacophony. "This must have been one of the messages that the captain got. Beverly—"

"Kai to Doctor Picard." The comm system cut Deanna off.

Thrown into autopilot by a system associated with her work, the doctor responded. "Picard here." Ensign Kai was the pediatric nurse assigned to the ship's nursery.

"Doctor, we're having some difficulties with your son. We could use your help down here."

"On my way." Beverly was standing as she gave the answer, she had to take care of her son, she could help him. Deanna followed, but she took no notice.

As soon as she walked into the nursery's main room, Ensign Kai was practically shoving a wailing Gabriel into her arms. "He's been crying for over an hour and I can't find anything medically wrong with him. It isn't his digestive problem, I'm certain. His lactase activity is the best it's been."

The doctor barely noticed her son's cries through her anger at the nurse. "You let him cry for over an hour? What were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry, Doctor, but he wasn't in any danger nor was he going to come into any harm. I would have called y—"

"There's no excuse, Ensign. There has to be some reason why he's crying and if you hadn't figured it out within twenty minutes, I should have been called. And if I wasn't available, you should have contacted the captain. It's standard protocol that when a child is upset and can't be settled you call the child's parents. I know you know the regulations, you set them yourself."

"I'm sorry," said Kai. "I really am. It's just that you even told—"

"I told you what?" The stranger's voice had finally found its emotion and that stranger was pissed. And it had a target right in front of it and wasn't willing to just let it go, no matter how much the doctor would have normally reacted with forgiveness and understanding.

"You said...you said for me to call you only after an hour if there's no medical explanation for it. I mean, if he wasn't in danger, then there would be no need, unless he's distressed in some way. He wasn't distressed, I had—"

"Obviously he was and is distressed." In fact, Gabriel's cries had only worsened since the argument had escalated between the doctor who was his mother and the nurse that took care of him in the daytime.

"Ensign." It was Troi, who spoke from her spot behind the doctor. "You're dismissed since Gabriel was the last child remaining here for the day. You may leave and I will speak with you later. Doctor Picard, I think you and I need to have a chat."

Beverly turned on her heel, her prior target immediately forgotten as the anger flared at a better target, one more apt for a fight. "Do we?"

Ensign Kai scurried out of the room, unnoticed.

"You aren't mad at the ensign," Deanna said.

"No, I'm not," said Beverly, the truth falling from her lips before she even knew it was the truth. Ensign Kai had done a wonderful job with Gabriel in the past two weeks. Beverly had even put in for the ensign to be promoted due to her medical work with her son. Gabriel's recovery was nearly complete and wouldn't have moved so quickly without the conscientiousness Kai had devoted to her duties.

In her surprise at recognizing who she wasn't mad at, her intensity faded away for a moment, and in that moment, Gabriel stopped crying. He hiccuped a few times, blinked, and looked around the room. Entirely quiet. Beverly blinked herself and looked down at her son, who looked back up at her with his deep green eyes.

Right away, she thought of her grandmother. _Nana, I don't know what to feel. How do you feel anything again when your child dies before you do? _But Nana was gone; she couldn't ask her. Instead, she had to attend to the needs of the child that she held in her arms and stumble along in the barren corridor of her emotions in the meantime. She held him close to her chest and kissed the top of his head. _You'll never know your sister, my boy_, she thought. _While I barely knew her at all, and I'm her mother_.

Another fear penetrated the fragile shell of her calm exterior. What if the message hadn't been the only one? It had said nothing of Andrew, of Robert, Rene, Marie. Was her son in a hospital somewhere without anyone by his side? What of the others?

Then she realized—_Jean-Luc must know_.

It must have been what he'd found out at the holodeck arch's terminal, except he had the whole story, he knew where their son was, where the rest of their family was, who had made it out alive.

And who hadn't.

He'd kept that information from her. He'd done it again, taking the pain all onto himself and not considering easing the burden by sharing with others, by sharing with her. Trying to protect her as she'd asked him not to. As he'd promised he wouldn't do. He'd done it again, his escape attempt from the reality of having to deal with a situation with another living, sentient being other than himself. And because of him, she didn't know whether their son and their other relatives were alive, injured, or unharmed.

As if he'd sensed her tension, Gabriel began to squirm and take on the signs that he was set to go into another squalling fit. Beverly brought him closer, laying his soft cheek against hers, her hand around the back of his head. "It's okay," she said, her tone as soft as her son's skin. He settled, his squirming lessening and then stopping entirely. "See? You're okay." Her eyes had fluttered shut, not wanting to see the world around her, only wanting to be aware of the boy she held.

"But you aren't," Deanna said. "You aren't and his father isn't."

The doors slid open and Alyssa Ogawa walked in. "I'm free now," she said. "I can take Gabriel for as long as you need me to." Her statement was directed at the counselor.

Beverly gave her friend a quizzical look. "I asked for her to come in a few minutes ago," Deanna explained. "I thought you would need someone to watch him for awhile and after the drubbing you gave Ensign Kai, I decided someone less easily intimidated by you would be a good choice."

"Oh." She was hesitant to give up the son she safely held in her arms, but with the level of tension threatening to take over her muscles, she knew it would be a wise decision to allow Alyssa to watch him. "I'll contact you when I've cleared things up," she said to Ogawa as she handed over Gabriel.

Alyssa nodded. "Of course."

Beverly saw it, recognized the sympathy and sadness in her head nurse's eyes. Concerned, attentive, all qualities that made Ogawa an excellent medical professional. Yet it bothered the doctor that her colleague already knew, because she still wasn't ready to know herself.

Her eyes trailed Alyssa's path as she left. Then again, she never would be. No one could be ready for that.

"Come on," said Deanna. "Let's go to your quarters."

The impulse to argue surged through her, anything to give her the freedom to shout and yell, but the urge to keep her situation private forced away the argumentativeness. "Okay," she said, leading the way out of the nursery.

The journey to her quarters was eerily quiet, neither woman willing to start something that would have to be silenced should any other person appear. When the turbolift doors opened, they found Will Riker standing on the other side, a stack of padds held in his arms. "If you need me," he said to both of them, "I'll be on the bridge. It's safe there."

He started to brush past them, but Deanna's words caused him to him pause. "Will, I need to know what happened."

"Once I know, I'll be sure to tell you," Riker replied, his normally jovial features drawn somber. "But that man I spoke to back there in the captain's quarters hardly seemed like the captain I've served with for seven years. Now, I need to go get us underway to the observatory. Excuse me." Then he disappeared behind the doors of the turbolift.

Beverly saw that somehow, the counselor had gleaned much more from Will's answers than she'd heard with her own ears. She envied that mysterious connection they had with one another, Deanna had even explained to her that at times, the connection could extend even into brief telepathy. At those times, they had the enviable ability to reassure one another without misunderstanding. Except they had to want to reassure the other, not hide things from the other. She'd had a connection like that with Jean-Luc once, on Kesprytt, and instead of reassuring them both, it had frightened them and done more damage to their already fragile non-relationship relationship.

Of course, if they had a connection like that now, she would know what had happened to their son, what had truly happened with their daughter, and if any of their extended family were still alive. And then their son and daughter had had a special connection of their own, being twins.

_Oh god, Andrew's lost his twin._

They were outside the doctor's quarters now and when that thought struck Beverly, it hit the counselor almost as hard, and Troi turned immediately. "Beverly?"

She shrugged. She couldn't think of a thing to say or even remember how to speak.

Deanna frowned as Beverly walked through the doors. Inside, the panel lighting that the ship always had on in case of emergency was the only source of light. It fell weakly on the figure of Jean-Luc Picard sitting at the dining table, his back to the doors. When they entered, he didn't turn.

"Captain?"

Slowly, he spun his chair around. "Counselor. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Actually," she said, moving closer to the table. "I'm here to see if there's anything I could do for you."

His eyes were oriented in the counselor's direction, but they didn't really see her. "Oh, no," he said, his gaze drifting back towards the table and the open family album on it. "It's just..." then the words stopped as he turned again and saw Beverly standing just inside in the doorway.

"You hid," she said.

The captain replied in a voice broken by fate's ruthless decisions. "Beverly, I—"

"You hid yourself and everything you knew away from me and now I don't know where our children are. Where are they, Jean-Luc? What's happened to them?" She didn't give him any room to backpedal, to explain himself, to try and make amends in any way.

His voice continued to crumble as he attempted to answer. "Allie, she—"

"She was alive to me longer than she was to you, because you hid it from me. But that was an illusion. And now I don't know where our son is, either. Was he hurt? Is he alone somewhere in a hospital? What about Robert, Rene, Marie? What's happened to them? What's happened?" When she came to a stop, gave a pause long enough for an answer to be given, the answer wasn't in the form either she or Deanna expected.

Defeat. The fight had gone from him, drawn out by the tears that traced the hard angles of his face, evidence that he had given up on the battle against reality. He'd stopped hiding, he'd stopped running away, and finally turned and taken what fate had given him.

Except it was too little, too late. Beverly fought the impulse to go over to him, to cradle his head in her arms, to brush away the tears and stop the pain she knew he was suffering. But she couldn't go to him because he hadn't come to her when he had found out, he hadn't shared the news with her, he'd hidden. He'd done exactly what he promised he wouldn't do. If he was anything, he was consistent in breaking one promise—that he wouldn't leave her.

And once again, he had. So she stood her ground, watching even as she felt her own heart crumbling, as Jean-Luc Picard came apart.

"Allie...Robert...Rene...they all burned to death in a fire." The words stumbled out, heavy and clumsy in a voice not meant to be one spoken by the captain.

"It was smoke inhalation," Beverly found herself saying. She had stopped looking the direction of her husband, in the direction of the counselor, and instead watched the stars streaking outside the windows. Will had ordered the ship into warp. "The report I had gotten, what killed Allie, and I'm sure must have also killed Robert and Rene, was smoke inhalation. Carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosgene, thermal damage. They all would have been unconscious before they were burned." If she kept her eyes on the stars, she could keep the emotions from wrapping around her mind and taking it over. She couldn't afford that now, she had to stay in control. "But what that report didn't say is what's happened to my son." She might not be able to protect Allie anymore, but she could protect him, she could do something for him, anything to help, because otherwise, she was useless.

"He's on a transport to the Amargosa Observatory and he'll be waiting for us when our ship arrives for our survey support mission. I just...I just sent Will to set course and engage the warp drive. We'll be there in a few days."

"A few days? Jean-Luc, we do have a higher warp—"

"Beverly!" The captain forgot his defeat and stood up, pushing the chair out of the way, his hand reaching behind him and closing the family album with a resolute snap. "It won't do us any good to go to a higher warp speed because then we would beat his transport there and we would end up waiting just as long. As it is, we will arrive only hours after Andrew does."

"We could meet his transport." Her husband just didn't understand, she would never be able to reach Allie now, but she could reach Allie's twin, she could be there for him.

"Not without disrupting our mission." The insight into his vulnerability had been locked away, his captain's mask now fully into place and painted over with a cold, dispassionate dedication to duty.

"Disrupting our mission? Don't you think Starfleet would allow you to interrupt a survey support mission because your daughter died?" The words nearly strangled her as they came out, but she forced them out, she had to make him face a reality that she couldn't face herself.

"Interrupting our mission will not change what has happened," he said, resorting to his most formal speech pattern.

"What's happened?" The question came from the little girl who stood just inside the doorway, so close to the door that it remained opened into the corridor. "Why are you yelling at each other? What's wrong?" The door closed behind her as she walked inside, peering closely at her father. "Papa, have you been crying?"

Beverly realized that in all the emotional and physical upheaval, while they had taken care of where Gabriel would be, they had forgotten that Gracie would be getting out of her school, and now she stood in front of them, waiting for an answer.

The doctor knelt to Gracie's level. "There's been an accident," she said.

The little girl's eyes widened, taking in the sparse amount of light available in the cabin, trying to see her parents, trying to make sure she was really awake and hearing what she thought she was hearing. "An accident?"

Beverly went to explain but the statement halted before it reached her mouth and she could only look at her daughter—the daughter she had left—and feel her chin quivering. Saying it with any sort of grief would mean giving in and she wasn't going to give in, she wasn't going to let it beat her, no matter how much reality was determined to be real.

"In La Barre," Jean-Luc said, filling in where Beverly had fallen. "There was a fire in the winery...and that fire...the smoke from that fire..." and the captain stumbled, too.

Gracie looked from one to the other. "Who died?" she asked, perceptive enough to know that with these sorts of reactions, someone had to have died. "Who?"

"Your uncle Robert...your cousin Rene...and your sister." Beverly said the names as if she were reading a casualty report back to the crew.

"Allie?" Gracie asked.

The captain answered. "Allie." The broken voice had returned, scraping away that mask of control with its caustic pressure.

If seeing the tears trail down the hard planes of her husband's face had shaken Beverly, seeing no tears at all appear on the soft cheeks of her daughter's face rattled her to no end. "It's okay to cry," she said to her.

"No it isn't," Gracie replied. "I don't want to say good bye and I'm not going to. I'm not. You cry when you're ready to say good bye. I'm not ready to say good bye."

Watching her younger daughter look fate in the eye and spit in its face, Beverly thought, _I'm not ready to say good bye, either._ _In our hearts, we're all five years old, and none of us are ever ready to accept fate and say good bye._


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Andrew Picard found nothing comforting in firelight. The flames reaching towards the darkening sky stood out starkly, brightly lit fingers that plucked and took whatever they wished. Marie lay near him on the grass, her breathing shallow and labored, having only worsened since she'd lost consciousness. Winter's cold snapped through the wind that fed the flames, flames that brought no warmth in them. He knew he should get up, flex his fingers as the cold nipped away at the feeling in them, get blankets for Marie, summon help, just get up and do something.

But he didn't. He didn't want to get up and acknowledge that he was alive, because he didn't think he should be. He thought he should be in that barn with his twin, as dead she she must be. Footsteps, one from a running human, followed by several more, sounded close by. And then Andrew noticed the reflections of emergency lights flashing from firefighting vehicles and crews and knew that somehow, help had already arrived. Someone knelt down next to him. "Is there anyone in that building?"

Andrew blinked, focusing on the events around him and escaping from his inward retreat into his thoughts. Medics were already surrounding Marie, administering oxygen, getting her on a stretcher to transport to the medical facility. Only then did he see the burns that covered parts of her body and he wondered if she would become another life taken by the fire. A hand dropped onto his shoulder to get his attention again. "Yes," he said, the acrid smoke causing his eyes to tear up as the wind drove into his face.

"How many?"

"Three." He could do this if he could stay clinically detached. He'd seen his mother do it enough times when she had to function as a doctor and not as a human being who was deeply affected by emotions. "My uncle, my cousin, my..." he couldn't say it. Casting his eyes in the direction of the winery, he saw that he wouldn't have to, firefighters were already rushing inside.

Another medic had knelt next to him, a medical tricorder out and scanning. "You've got some damage to your lungs and throat from smoke inhalation," the medic said. "Were you in that building?"

"I ran in," Andrew said, not looking at the medic. Instead, he was watching the main doors of the winery, hoping to see firefighters run back out carrying his sister, a sister who would still be alive. "When we got here..." If they hadn't run inside, if they had stayed out here, she would be alive.

"Can you tell me your name?" Now the medic was shining a light in each of his eyes.

He squinted. "Andrew."

The other medic looked up from the padd he where he was entering data. "I need your first and last name."

"Andrew Picard." The firefighters still hadn't come out. The others had brought around two of the ground trucks, dousing the flames with one of their many chemicals. "My sister was—" then he was struck by a paroxysm of coughs, his mouth tasting like soot. Once he managed to stifle the coughing, he was barely able to breathe, his throat constricting and his lungs burning.

Almost immediately other medics appeared bearing oxygen and helped him up onto a stretcher. They stopped asking questions aside from whether he could breathe or not. He was still watching the entrance to the winery when the doors shut on the transport and drove towards the medical facility. He saw no signs of where they had taken his aunt when they rolled the anti-grav stretcher into the emergency part of the medical facility. He'd sat up, trying to see and find her, but the doctors and nurses pushed him back down, told him he needed to lie down, he had to save his energy, he was very sick. "I'm fine," he said, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask they kept over his mouth.

The doctors ignored him. "We're going to need to repair the damage to your lungs," one explained. "We'll have to put you under for that."

"No!" He bolted upright and fought against the nurses and techs who tried to get him to relax.

"I'm sorry, but we have to," the doctor said.

Andrew felt the cold metal of the hypo, the hiss of its contents being injected, and then he felt nothing.

2361

Both of them delayed going to bed for as long as possible, repeatedly asking for drinks of water, then trips to the bathroom, then a story, until Felisa finally put her foot down and said there would be no more requests unless one of them was terribly ill. She'd had a feeling they would have trouble sleeping, as tonight would be their first night sleeping in different rooms.

They settled down after her last scolding and she made herself comfortable in her kitchen, sorting through her most recent correspondence with her granddaughter. She wanted to give Beverly more impetus to just tell that man about the twins and how she felt about him. At times, Felisa wanted to contact Jean-Luc Picard herself, just to set things straight between all of them. But she knew it had to be done between the two of them and she had to stay out of it. However, she had no qualms about continuing to hint at every available opportunity.

Little footsteps shuffled behind her. Felisa didn't bother to look up. "You'd better be sick something awful for you to be out of your bed," she said, jotting another note with her stylus.

"Nana," Allie said, fear touching her voice.

Felisa immediately turned around—Allie was never afraid of anything. "What is it?"

Allie's blue eyes were wide, and in them, fright had definitely taken up residence. "I'm missing my Andrew."

"What?"

"I'm missing him. I went..." she trailed off, realizing that what she was going to say might get her into trouble.

Felisa recognized the source of the hesitancy. "You won't get in trouble. Just tell me what's happened."

Allie fidgeted with her fingers. "I fell asleep, but I woke up again and felt lost, so I went to sleep in Andrew's bed and when I went in the room, he wasn't there."

The older woman frowned, as either twin was generally aware of where the other one was, even if they weren't within earshot or within sight, they could point out where to find the other. It was one of their more uncanny traits, even more disconcerting than when they would finish each other's sentences. "Why don't we look for him," she said.

"Please." Allie took her hand and they first went to his room to verify that he truly wasn't there, which he wasn't. They searched the closet, then went from room to room in the house, the guest room, each bathroom, Felisa's room. They went downstairs and searched the living room, library, office, and came up with nothing. The fear that had struck Allie had started creeping up within Felisa's mind, that somehow she'd lost him. Allie's fear she felt even more strongly through the iron grip the little girl kept on her hand, that the idea of losing her twin brother left her absolutely petrified.

As they went back upstairs to begin the search anew, Allie's grip on her great-grandmother's hand suddenly loosened and the girl bolted into her bedroom. "I found him!" she shouted.

Felisa quickly followed and saw where Allie's had found her twin. The boy had somehow taken the quilt from his own bed, along with his pillow, setup underneath his sister's bed, and had promptly fallen sound asleep.

Allie's shout had woken him up and he blinked a few times, obviously surprised to come face to face with his great-grandmother and sister peering at him. "I couldn't sleep," he said. "I kept waking up over and over and every time I woke up, I felt lost. So I came in here."

Felisa realized that where Andrew had set up his little camp was as close to his sister as he could get without alerting his great-grandmother. With both of them saying how lost they felt and seeing how badly each of them slept, she realized that they weren't ready to have separate bedrooms. "How about you both sleep with me tonight," she said. "And tomorrow, we'll move you back in together. But someday, you will have to have separate bedrooms."

"Yes," they said together, the fear and confusion fleeing their eyes completely, replaced by identical grins.

2371

_It was dark all around him, he couldn't see, he kept his hands out in front of him, braced and trying to feel for something, anything. He couldn't find her and he was panicking now, the panic taking over as he was engulfed with the feeling of being absolutely lost. His lungs had started to burn and his throat constricted and he couldn't breathe. He had to find her. Had to—_

Andrew woke up gasping and sought to bring his breathing under control. It was hard because he didn't feel calm at all. Instead, that incredibly lost feeling saturated everything. He tried thinking about the memory where the dream had come from, when Nana had made her first attempt at separating them and instead of cooperating, they'd both ended up waking up and gone looking for the other. He remembered how that lost feeling had completely disappeared once he was close to his twin, and he'd felt so safe that the concept of having trouble sleeping melted away and he'd fallen asleep easily.

The memory only served to make him feel more lost than before, more than when he'd been that six-year-old boy looking for his twin sister in the middle of the night. Beside him, one of the monitors beeped an alarm about his respiration rate and it brought one of the nurses into the room to check on him. "You're awake," she said.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice sounding less scratchy than he thought it would have, considering how it sounded before being treated. "It's still night." The darkness behind the curtains of the window next to his hospital bed told him. "What day is it?"

"You weren't out for that terribly long," the nurse said, making notations onto her padd from the monitor's readouts. "A few hours, so it's the same day it was before you went under." She frowned at the monitor. "What just happened to you?"

He shrugged. "Bad dream, I guess." Of course, there was no guessing. It had been exactly that, but he wasn't about to tell some stranger how he felt. They wouldn't understand anyway, none of them were a twin.

"Uh-huh," the nurse said, in a way that told him that she didn't believe him in the least about the guessing.

He decided to change the subject. "How's Marie?"

The nurse stopped writing down her notes. "Your aunt is going to be okay, but she'll be here awhile. We've got her in a regen chamber right now to treat her burns and heal and create her new skin. She won't be awake for at least another week, so we've contacted her sister Cécile. She's here already, in the burn treatment room with Marie. She said she wanted to see you when you woke up."

"I've never even met her." He didn't feel up to meeting new people. He just wanted to lay there and wish they hadn't run into the winery.

The nurse fixed a good glare on him. "Young man, she hasn't met you either, but nevertheless, she's fairly concerned about you. You are, after all, her sister's nephew. I'll tell her you're awake." She left without letting him object.

He stared after her, shocked that she would do such a thing and indignant that he couldn't even object. She'd cut him off before he'd even _started_. As he looked at the empty doorway, another woman walked through it, about the same height as his aunt, same hair, same eyes...he blinked. "I didn't know Marie had a twin."

Cécile smiled. "You'd be surprised at the things one person doesn't know about another, including a person they think they know very well. So I take it neither she nor Robert told you?"

"Obviously not," he said, suddenly irrationally angry at Marie, that she should have her twin be alive and here he'd lost his.

She sat down in the chair next to his bed. "You're angry," she said, crossing her arms.

He frowned at her. "And you're blunt."

"And you," she said, leaning back and reading the monitor, "are most certainly a Picard."

When he saw that she was not only reading the monitor, but understanding and interpreting the results on the screen, he realized there was even more to the woman than he'd first thought. "You're a doctor," he said, much more accusatorial than he'd intended, but he didn't try to explain his original intent.

She nodded. "And a twin, like you."

"Not like me," he said, before he realized he'd said it. It wasn't something he was ready to talk about, and certainly not to this woman he'd just met. "I mean," he said, attempting to backtrack now, "that you're obviously an identical twin, not a fraternal."

"Twins are twins," she replied, looking away from the readouts and back at him. "And even though your sister died in that fire, you're still a twin."

He didn't want to get into the discussion, not then, and not ever if he could avoid it. So he studied the intricate weaving of the hospital blanket that was draped over him. It was only intricate because it didn't involve his making eye contact with Cécile. In any other instance, the blanket would be the most simple and boring one he'd ever seen.

She continued, ignoring his reticence. "And you're quite pissed off, even if you haven't realize exactly how pissed off you really are, at my sister and probably me to an extent. I mean, not only is her twin alive and yours isn't, but it's her fault that you're alive and your sister isn't."

"I'm not—" then he stopped. He'd opened his mouth with the intention of saying that he wasn't angry with Marie, but found that he couldn't say it, because he _was_ mad at her, incredibly mad that she had stopped him. He could have gotten her if he'd gone back inside, he could've gotten all of them. Whoever he reached first he could've dragged out, like with Marie, then gone in again and again until all of them were out of the burning winery, all of them safe and alive. Instead, she'd held onto his ankle, kept him outside while his sister fell silent and died inside.

"Exactly," said Cécile. "I figure, instead of letting you stew over this for months and months and repressing anger at everyone including yourself, that I'd let you know exactly how hard it must have been for my own sister to keep you from going back in."

He finally looked over at Cécile and allowed the anger to show in his eyes. "_Her_ twin wasn't in there," he said.

"No, but her husband, son, and niece were. She'd already faced the reality of the fire and had to choose between the slim, desperate chance that her husband, son, and niece could be saved, that her nephew would absolutely stay alive. Because she knew with almost perfect certainty that if you had gone back into that building, you would not have come back out, and she would've lost all four of you instead of three. So don't think it was an easy decision for her or that she's not going to relive that moment of her life over and over again for years yet. Tell me honestly, if you had gone back in there, and found one of them and figured out that it was your uncle or your cousin, would you have brought them out right then or tried to find your sister first?"

"I would have..." and he knew it would've been a hard choice, because Allie was his twin, his sister, he was supposed to save her. But he couldn't have lived with himself if he'd left his uncle or cousin there to die, and Allie would've never forgiven him if he chose her over someone else that he'd come across before her. "I would have brought whoever I found first outside."

"Do you see that's the kind of decision she had to make when she held you back? And she knew the added layers of what it was doing to you, of what it would do to you, because she's a twin herself. It's up to you. You can say pissed at her if you want, but you're going to have enough to deal with emotionally that you can decide to stop being angry with her and then you'll have one less layer to fight through in the coming weeks."

She was right and he knew it. He wondered how long it would've taken Counselor Troi to get him to recognize what Cécile had gotten him to understand in less than ten minutes. Then again, maybe that's why the nurse forced him to talk to his aunt's sister, because she'd known Marie was a twin, and that Cécile would be able to reach him on a different level of understanding than any typical counselor. Yet he didn't want to talk about it anymore, not that he had in the first place. He just wanted to think about something else, then his mind struck on the other companion of his life. "Have you been to the house yet?" he asked her.

If she was surprised by his abrupt subject change, she didn't show it. "Not yet. I was planning on going once I knew you'd woken up and had spoken with you. Why?"

"My dog is there, in the house. I'm sure he needs to go outside and hasn't been fed yet, he must be starving." He strained again to see the monitor, but it said nothing of when they were going to discharge him. "When are they letting me out of here?"

"Maybe tomorrow morning as long as you stay stable, which means no more gasping for air when you're dreaming."

"So not tonight?"

"Absolutely not." Cécile stood up. "Tell you what. If you'll let the nurse give you a sedative so you can get some sleep—which I know you need—then I will go and look after your dog. Okay?"

He knew that she would have looked after Conal regardless of what he agreed to, but he recognized her insight into how he wouldn't be sleeping at all without a sedative, not right then. And he desperately wanted to be asleep. "Deal," he said. "His name's Conal. He's, um, quite a large dog. An Irish Wolfhound. His name's Conal."

Cécile smiled at him again. "I'm familiar with the breed. I have two myself. You have a good sleep and I'll be here first thing when they discharge you."

He frowned at her second comment, filing away the content of the first. "You won't be sitting with Marie?"

"She'll be unconscious, so she'll be fine while I help her nephew get things sorted out."

Andrew nodded and the woman headed for the door. "Hey," he said, calling after her. "What should I call you?"

"You're my sister's nephew, so I guess that makes you a nephew to me in some way. Feel free to call me Aunt Cécile, as long as there's no expletives between Aunt and Cécile." Then she was out the door, leaving him with a slight hint of a smile.

A nurse appeared to take her place and gave him a sedative-loaded hypo, sending him back into a numbing sleep.

2358

Felisa Howard ran after her great-grandson, determined to catch the three-year-old terror. This time, he'd entertained himself by sliding along the old, slick wooden floorboards of the barn, only to come to a halt when he got splinters in his left foot from one not-quite-timeworn-enough plank. She'd heard him yelp from her spot pouring oats into feedbags and turned quickly enough to witness him hopping around on his right foot, trying to see the bottom of his left, not knowing his Nana was right there and could see him. When he stopped hopping and looked up to see her there, he immediately went into acting as if nothing was wrong at all. He even walked on his left foot, as if to prove to her that he was perfectly fine.

He kept up the act until he realized Felisa wasn't buying it, and then he took off in a run towards the safety of the house while she gave chase. She managed to catch up to him in the hallway, just as she'd snatched up one of her small medical kits. Andrew started howling as soon as she'd pinned him down and she'd yet to even get ahold of his foot, much less touch it. His crying began in earnest when she got to his foot and saw how deep the splinters were and how the skin around them was already red and inflamed. Each time her finger touched the bottom of his foot to check a splinter's depth, he let out another anguished cry, as if she were trying to kill him.

As Felisa picked out one of her tools that worked best for removing splinters with the least amount of pain, Allie came running around the corner, crying herself, and dove over her brother's body. The little girl had ignored first his running from their great-grandmother, because it was a situation encountered often, and then his howling, another situation encountered whenever he knew he was getting any sort of medical attention. She'd even gone off to another room without a second thought as the chase went on around her. But once her twin had let loose with a serious cry of pain, she'd come to his rescue from whatever she'd been doing in the living room.

"Stop hurting him!" she shouted, placing herself between Felisa and Andrew.

"I'm not hurting him, love," Felisa said. "He's got a couple splinters in his foot and I'm trying to take them out. I know his foot hurts from the splinters and hurts whenever I press on it, but I'm not trying to hurt him. I'm trying to heal him."

The little girl looked dubious about Felisa's motives and didn't move.

The older woman sighed. "Here. Watch me as I take them out."

Andrew continued to cry, while Allie, also still crying, attentively watched Felisa work. When Felisa held out the splinters, now free of Andrew's foot, she presented them to the little girl. "See? Now I'll just heal up the inflammation and he'll be good as new."

"Oh," said Allie, lifting her small body off her brother's now that his safety was assured.

"There, finished." She let go of Andrew and he sat up, his crying already abated and left to hiccups and sniffles.

Allie's crying had ceased as well and she smiled at her brother and at Felisa. "Thank you," she said, then nudged her brother.

"Thank you," he said, wiping at his eyes. Then Allie was helping him up off the floor and the two of then ran off into the living room, laughing and smiling, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

Felisa was left, looking after them as the dashed away, taken aback once again at the intangibles that bonded the two of them together. How Allie, even at three years old, had known the subtle difference between Andrew's cries and had only come running once the tone in them had changed from typical Andrew protesting over medical treatment to true fear and pain. And it wasn't often that a sibling would come running like that to protect another, even if they were close in age. Shaking her head, she walked after them, intent on keeping them out of trouble for the rest of the day.

2371

_There had been a sharp pain in his foot, hot and piercing. Then he remembered running, being brought to the ground, someone holding him down and trying to look at his hurt foot. He cried and his sister came running and then he knew he'd be safe. He'd do the same for her. It was the way it worked between them, backing each other up, sticking up for one another, always there to keep the other safe. There had been talking he barely heard as he cried, then the pain had gone away from his foot and he came face to face with his tormentor only to realize it was Nana and she'd only been trying to get the splinters out of his foot. And then everything was okay._

Andrew opened his eyes, another memory had settled into his mind as he'd slept, this one of a story he didn't remember many details of, but one he knew all the details of because Nana had delighted in telling the story to anyone who'd listen. He did recall the repeated embarrassment at how easily he'd start crying whenever she'd tried to give him medical attention. But Nana had brushed it off, saying that it was perfectly acceptable behavior for a child and that he'd stopped doing it now. At least the crying bit, because he still tried to escape from his great-grandmother whenever he got hurt and knew she would be coming to heal him.

The nurse appeared within moments of him waking up, followed by a doctor who explained he should take it easy the next few days, no strenuous exercise that could tax the newly healed tissues in his respiratory system. He was also given a pack of hypos he was supposed to administer to himself daily for the next week to keep the stress off his lungs so they wouldn't be re-injured from coughing or anything else. True to her word, Cécile appeared as soon as the nurses notified her. "You ready?" she asked.

He frowned. While he wanted out of the medical facility, he didn't really want to go back and live in that house. "For what?"

"I'm bringing you back to the house so you can pack up your stuff. A shuttle has already been arranged to bring you to a Starfleet transport ship that's due to head to the Amargosa Observatory."

"You're packing me up and shipping me off? Shouldn't I stay here and help?"

"You know as well as I do that you won't be able to stay on the vineyard right now. You're going to have enough difficulty being there long enough to get your things. Right now, you need to be with your parents, not with an aunt by marriage once removed. You need to see your younger sister and brother. What you _don't_ need is to stay here and wait while Marie stays in the induced coma while she heals and I take care of paperwork and all of us wait for the fire investigation team to figure out what caused the fire."

"It wasn't just one of the fermenting machines or anything sparking and setting something aflame?"

Cécile shook her head. "No. They're saying it looks like arson and now they're trying to figure out how it was set."

"Arson." It wasn't a question, nor was it really a statement, just repeated aloud to himself what he'd just heard from Cécile. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

"I don't know. No one does, so that's a huge issue in the entire investigation." She handed him a clean change of clothes.

He shifted and took the proffered clothing. "Why the Amargosa Observatory?"

"It's where the _Enterprise_ has been assigned to go next, it will arrive only a few hours after your transport does. The ship that's taking you there is bringing a new crew to rotate for a tour at the observatory, relieving the current one."

"Oh." She left the room and he quickly changed. The short ride to the vineyard was quiet. When they stepped out of the shuttle, he could immediately smell the smoke that tinged the air. He grimaced.

"I know," she said. "Let's get this over with quickly."

He couldn't agree with her more, grateful that she understood. Conal came bounding up to him when they walked inside the house and Andrew felt slightly less lost. The dog stayed by his side as they continued their walk up the stairs, passing the stack someone had made of his and Allie's fencing bags in the living area. Someone had shut the door to Allie's bedroom and he made short working of packing in his own, already desperate to be out of that house. He went back downstairs with his packed belongings, looking stolidly the other way when he passed the door to Allie's bedroom.

"You packed faster than I thought you would," Cécile said.

"Practice," he replied. Then he noticed that other people were in the house and he identified them as officials from the fire department. "Hello," he said to the man who hadn't gone off around the house looking into things.

"Hello," said the man. "My name is Grégory Gallas, I'm an officer with the European Fire Investigation. I've been assigned to your case."

Andrew frowned. "My case."

Gallas shifted uncomfortably. "As a liaison officer to the family as the investigation goes forward. I'm also assigned to notify next of kin."

"Right," Andrew said, not offering anything else to the investigator. He'd already grown disinterested in what the man had to say, he could call up the report on his own, and he certainly didn't want to listen to any sympathetic platitudes they taught men like Gallas in bereavement school or however they taught liaison officers to by sympathetic.

"I thought I'd allow you to send your own message to your parents before I send the official next of kin notification messages."

"I'm touched," he replied, starting in the direction of the office.

The obvious sarcasm of his reply earned him a sharp look from Cécile.

He raised his eyebrows in a slight apology and went into the office and away from that damn liaison officer. For the next half hour, he sat at the desk, staring at the terminal, not knowing what he should say. He knew that nothing could really dispel the blow the news would render. Then he realized he knew what he should say, but that he couldn't bring himself to say it, much less write it down in any form. Finally, he gave up and keyed in a short message relaying only pertinent information on his whereabouts and relative health. For the rest, he would attach the official report. And it was hard enough to link that part onto the message, because he knew what it contained. He addressed the message only to his father, because he couldn't bring himself at all to send it to his mother. And he knew that his father could soften the blow, maybe a little, when he told his mother. Once he hit 'transmit,' he practically ran out of the room.

"Your transport's here," Cécile said when he entered the living room.

"That was fast," he said, going to his stack of baggage.

"You took a little while," she said. She handed him a padd. "Here's your itinerary. Once the shuttle gets you to Paris transporter station, you'll be beamed straight to the transport ship and I think it's due to get underway straight away."

"Not much time to breathe in all that, much less think," he said.

"I know." She didn't have to say that she'd done it on purpose. He knew she had. They bid good-bye and she promised to keep him notified of Marie's condition, as well as any news she heard that wouldn't be included on the official reports. He surprised himself by giving her a hug before he boarded the shuttle.

The days on the transport passed slowly, filled with meaningless conversations with the crew, requests for stories about the _Enterprise_ and his father, and his continued attempts to rebuff those requests. On the second day, he finally checked his messages and received word that he'd passed the Academy exam and was consequently being offered a place in the class that would be matriculating next fall. If only it had been three days ago, he would've been elated. Instead, he merely checked off the message as read, and tried to forget about it, because it made him remember those last hours with his sister. It just didn't mean much anymore.

He found himself sitting on the floor of his tiny, cramped cabin, leaning against his bunk, and biting his bottom lip so hard that it was nearly drawing blood. Ever since the fire had broken the connection between himself and his sister, he'd felt only half alive. They had entered the world together and he'd always thought they would leave together, that they _should_ have left together. He fiercely studied the wall across from him, ignoring the specter of being alone that wrapped him in vacuous arms, until the thought struck him fully and he suddenly knew what being alone really meant. With that realization pulling a dark hood over his thoughts, plunging him into a dark room, losing himself, he lost the battle with the tears and let them fall.

Near him, Conal got up from where he'd curled up in a corner and sat next to Andrew. First he tried licking away the tears with Andrew pushing him away and the tears not giving any signs of drying up soon. So the wolfhound settled for resting his head on his human's shoulder while Andrew scratched behind his hears, trying to clear the feeling of being lost from his mind.

The feeling of being lost refused to go away. It clung to him through the rest of the journey, stuck to him even as they offloaded onto the observatory. The crew that had been on the station were happy to board the transport ship and head off to new postings, while the new crew were happy at the chance to participate in the upcoming survey mission. After all, as one ensign had said, it was being supported by the _Enterprise_.

Andrew dumped his baggage in one of the storage areas and went back out to the control center of the observatory, wanting to get immersed in something that could take all his attention and make him forget that he was only half-alive. Once in the control center, he saw a white-haired humanoid looking man complaining rather loudly to the lieutenant commander who had just been assigned to the observatory.

"I'm at a critical phase in my experiment with the Amargosa star," he said. "I don't understand why Starfleet thought it would be a good idea to conduct a crew rotation right _now_."

"I'm sorry, Doctor, but it was scheduled for this time. You have known about the rotation for quite awhile now."

"Well, I'm sorry that I couldn't make the star conform to Starfleet's arbitrary schedule. I hope you realize that if this experiment is not completed within fifteen hours, years of research will be lost."

"Yes, I do realize that. It's why we trained and oriented the new crew while on the transport."

"Always good to make use of what time you have, isn't it, Commander?" the doctor said, then he looked straight at Andrew. "What do you say, Mr. Picard?"

Andrew did his best not flinch at this scientist already knowing his name. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

The man walked over, his stride controlled and purposeful. He offered his hand once he was within reach. "Doctor Tolian Soran. I'm the one who is supposed to be in charge of this observatory, but sometimes, I think they only pay me lip service to that fact."

Giving the man a slight, uncomfortable smile, Andrew shook the hand offered him. "Andrew," he said. "Though, it seems you already knew who I was." The fact bothered him and he couldn't exactly name why.

"It pays to know who will be arriving on your station," Soran said. "It ends up saving you a lot of time, as introductions tend to move a lot faster. Time is a very important thing, young man. We're only meant to be around for so long. And as they say, time is the fire in which we burn."

Andrew's hand went cold and he quickly withdrew it from Soran. He couldn't know, there was no possible way news could have traveled this far this quickly about what had happened on Earth. What the man said had to be a coincidence for it to impact him so deeply. Then again, it seemed like Soran calculated every single thing he said or did. He went to reply but his words were drowned out by the sound of the observatory's structure being hit by what sounded like weapons fire from a starship. Like a clap of thunder following a lightning strike, the observatory lurched sideways and tossed most of the crew to the deck.

Soran quickly got to his feet and bolted to the other side of the observatory, intent on saving his experiment's readouts. Andrew didn't bother to get up, he found that he really didn't care if he lived or died. The shots continued to pound the observatory and shook the station again and again. The power flickered and went out, emergency life support generators thrummed into action, casting the control center in an eerie green glow. Andrew decided he should make sure Conal was safe and struggled to his feet, only to be knocked down by a falling bulkhead, while a smaller support truss hit him in the temple. As he lay there on the deck, he heard the sounds of a transporter, then several transports, footsteps, phaser fire. Right as his eyes shut for the last time as he lapsed into darkness, his brain registered the type of weapons fire he was hearing. _Type III disruptor fire. That means it's either Romulans, the Breen, or Klingons._ But by the time one of the attackers got to his body and nudged it with a booted foot to see if he was alive or dead, Andrew was already unconscious, and wouldn't be able to confirm his theory about who was doing the attacking.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

_The _Enterprise _cruised out of warp, dropping into the scene of the battle as a falcon would dive to investigate the ground below. The raider ship stalked the small shuttle, the toying with its prey long since over, already it had disabled the other vessel, already boarding parties had landed, ravaged, and left the few survivors behind. Jean-Luc Picard stood on the bridge of his own vessel, his available firepower enough to send the raider ship into whatever oblivion in which raiders might have chosen to believe. But with the other ship so close to the vulnerable shuttle, superior firepower meant nothing. Standing on the bridge of his ship, the captain struggled to breathe, his lungs burning for lack of oxygen, his mind frozen, unable to decide on a course of action. For in the shuttle below, a shuttle now spinning lazily on its axis, his child was trapped. He couldn't allow himself to think that his daughter was already dead at the hands of the raiders. No, she had too strong a mettle to die that way. She was like her mother. She would survive. _

_Only a few seconds had passed as he assessed the situation. They would beam the survivors aboard and distract the raiders with an attempt at negotiation. He motioned to his security chief to open up a communication channel. But hardly had his hand lifted from his side when the viewscreen in front of them burned out in a harsh white flash of light. When the white highlights faded, the screen showed no raider ship, only the expanding millions of particles that used to compose the shuttle's hull. They were too late, all of them, the raiders had triggered a remote detonator to ignite the shuttle's small warp core. Though that core was small, the resulting explosion destroyed anything and everything within its vicinity._

_The _Enterprise_ hadn't shuddered in the least at the event, its inertial dampeners not even taxed in absorbing the impact of the shockwave. But the people inside the large ship had no inertial dampeners of their own and the shockwave that hit them had no bounds, nothing that could stop its pummeling. The captain stood on the bridge of his ship and his mind felt as burned out as the viewscreen, seeing and feeling nothing but the blinding light. His child had been on that ship, he'd come to rescue her and the others, and he had been too late. He'd failed at one of his most basic tasks. He wanted to shout, to cry, but instead, he found that he'd forgotten how to breathe._

Jean-Luc Picard opened his eyes to a dark room, his breathing shallow and quick, his heart racing at the nightmare that had raided his sleep. A shuttle accident, there had been a shuttle accident. Then he remembered that the accident in his dream had only been a part of Q's future, a future that hadn't come to pass. Relief tumbled through him, loosening the tense muscles, freeing his lungs to breathe easily, his breathing becoming regular. Allie was fine, she hadn't been killed in some meaningless shuttle accident caused by a rogue raiding ship.

No. She'd died in a fire on Earth, nowhere near the dangers of space. The captain felt as if he'd been blindsided, the relief a distant past that he would never recapture. Too late, he recognized the dream for what it was—the eye of the storm. Waking up had only plunged him into the real maelstrom. Suddenly, he wanted to return to that first nightmare, because then, there had been a slim hope that somehow he could get there in time. He could have stopped the raiders. Maybe destroyed that enemy vessel and hope that the explosion wouldn't damage the shuttle too badly. And then, the nightmare was a nightmare no longer, because it held within it a faded remnant of hope.

He'd had nothing of the sort with the fire, no hope of stopping it. It had taken all of them by surprise, in its meaninglessness, in its practical inevitability. There was nothing he could have done, that anyone could have done. And there the frustration lay, holding him to the point of suffocation with its panic, with its loss of control. He could command a starship, engage in tactical battles and emerge as the victor, he could negotiate a delicate treaty between two warring factions, but he couldn't stop the basic element of fire from consuming the life of his daughter.

Sweat dripped into his eyes as he sat up in his bed and he wiped the stinging drops from his brow with his sleeve. Beside him, Beverly stirred slightly in her own sleep, then stilled, not waking up. The captain slipped out of the warm bed and into the dark ship's night, pulled on some clothes, automatically defaulting to a clean uniform. The door shut silently behind him as he moved to the main cabin, thinking of how a turn of events could make him wish for that dark future that had been Q's making. He'd wanted to change it, to keep it from happening, and they all had succeeded. That future was wiped from existence, never to be.

His son's question came to him, unbidden, voicing itself in the gently cold tone that had become Andrew's trademark when questioning others. _"Have you ever been sure of what you wanted, then gotten it, and then realized you hadn't been so sure after all?"_

Right then, Picard knew he wasn't so sure anymore. At least in Q's future, he'd had more time with Allie, more time to spend with her, get to know with her, to see her smile at teasing him, watch her grow into a beautiful woman with grace and wit like her mother's. Now he wouldn't even have that. He'd only had a year with her and then she'd been taken away.

Anger caught him by surprise, anger at Beverly for those years she'd hidden Allie away, depriving him of the wonder and love he'd felt at having Allie as his daughter. He violently shoved the anger down, containing it even as it struggled to break free. He was over that, he didn't deserve to be angry over it, his actions had assured him of being away from her as surely as Beverly's had. After all, he had chosen to leave, the initial decision that would guide the course of all their lives from that point forward.

And now his ship raced for another destination, not as quickly as he truly wanted, only as fast as the mission itself dictated. As fast as Starfleet had ordered, never considering that his son's shuttle transport was headed in the same direction and would be meeting them at the observatory.

The dream caught him again, an uppercut to the jaw, sending him reeling backwards into panic, because he could be too late for that meeting, as he had in Q's future, with Allie's shuttle. This time, it could be Andrew's shuttle or the observatory, and then they would both be dead.

He sought to regain control of his breathing. It would be hours from now, they would get there in time. He had to believe it, he couldn't question it, it was a constant. It had to be, there was no other choice. Losing both of them would hold no meaning, already, Allie had died in a meaningless fire. Andrew couldn't be allowed to die in a meaningless shuttle accident. He couldn't.

After making sure to avoid the dining table and the stack of padds Beverly had left on it the evening before, Picard started towards his desk and its terminal, intent on reading the updates from the fire investigation, wanting to know if perhaps there had been meaning in that fire, that someone had set it with some particular purpose in mind. Then he could focus his frustration on that person, he'd have a target. His task was interrupted by cries from Gabriel's small room and the captain practically ran to get him, not wanting the baby to wake Beverly. Whether it was out of respect for her need of sleep or his unwillingness to face her continued campaign of cold anger against him, he wasn't sure. Entering the room, he could see that the boy's face had already turned red in his effort to cry and Picard quickly picked him up and held him against his upper body.

The boy started to quiet as Picard went over when his son had last been fed, when he'd last been changed. He checked that and found that neither were the source of Gabriel's discomfort. Again, it was that elusive tormentor that so many times made their son cry out in the night. The boy's alactasia had been fully treated and his digestion made entirely normal. But even so, Gabriel hadn't much budged from his old patterns of being hard to settle, hard to make content, and therefore difficult to handle. He left the bedroom and paced in front of the windows of their cabin, cradling the back of the boy's head with his hand as his son rested on his shoulder. Underneath his fingers, the infant's hair was impossibly soft and Picard found something soothing about it. Now entirely quieted, Gabriel lifted his head and his eyes were drawn in the direction of the streaking stars outside, the bright white lines against a black background. The captain kissed the top of his son's head and watched the stars with him, trying to exist only in that moment. He matched his breathing to the boy's, soon it became, slow, regular, and Gabriel's head had drifted to lay on his father's shoulder, his eyes now shut to the windows in front of them, asleep.

His trip back to the boy's room was slow this time as he felt reluctant to put the infant back, wanting to hold onto that peacefulness for as long as he could. Reality faced him otherwise and he didn't want to face it any more than he had before. But he was a starship captain and he had things to be done and he needed to review that fire investigation report and get his reaction under control before he went on duty. He smoothed the fuzz of rusty colored hair on his son's head, then quietly went to his desk, where he'd intended to go in the first place.

First he was going to read the update, but found himself distracted by a message from Cécile, his sister-in-law's twin. True relief washed over him as he read, Marie would fully recover, she'd been awakened from her medically inducted coma the day before, her burns now healed. Cécile had taken her to her own home to convalesce, knowing that recovery at the vineyard would be nearly impossible for the time being.

The captain understood. Marie would only be able to return when she was ready to face, deal with, and accept what had happened and he felt no need for anyone to push her towards it. After all, he didn't want to be pushed towards it either. None of them did, because none of them wanted to accept it.

He wanted those two months back. No, he wanted all those years back, the years he'd spend captaining his ships, unaware of his son and daughter, unable to assume his role as their father, unable to watch them as they grew up. He wanted all those moments back, their first steps, first words, first scrapes, first day of school, first fencing lesson, first riding lesson, their first real look at the stars. But they were gone, now part of the past, and he'd never have them.

Frustration surging again, he stabbed the key to select the updated investigation report from Earth to display.

—Update Report—

European Alliance Fire Investigation

Case Number: EAF47988

Stardate: 48633.6

Continued Summary of Incident:

_The investigation revealed that the fire had originated below the sub-fermenter. The indicators observed and the evidence taken and analyzed revealed the fire was started by the distribution of a fire accelerant and ignited by an open flame. One witness (W-1) has indicated a man forced his way into the winery structure and used a weapon that stunned each person in the building. This man is the primary suspect (S-1). However, the suspect has not been identified as the witness (W-1) had never seen the man before. The placement of the victims' bodies (V-1, V-2) corroborates W-1's statement. Examination of the bodies of V-1 and V-2 indicate nerve ending disruption patterns commonly found after stunning by a Federation type II phaser. Cause of death for each victim (V-1, V-2, V-3) was smoke inhalation. _

Witnesses:

_W-1 Marie Picard, La Barre, France, European Union, Sol III. DOB 1-31-2302. _

_W-2 Andrew Picard, SFENT. DOB 12-25-2354._

Victims:

_V-1 Robert Picard, La Barre, France, European Union, Sol III. DOB 3-15-2301. _

_V-2 Rene Picard, La Barre, France, European Union, Sol III. DOB 9-1-2358._

_V-3 Natalie Picard, SFENT. DOB 12-25-2354._

_Bodies have been released for internment. _

—End Update Report—

The captain pulled up the message from Cécile again to see if he'd overlooked any comment she might have made about Marie telling her about a man who'd broken into the winery and stunned them all before setting the entire building on fire. Nothing, she hadn't mentioned it at all. He sat back and frowned at the terminal, trying to figure out who would so something like this, who would want anyone in his family dead. Not only that, but who would stun them so they had no chance of escape, but would regain consciousness in time to know they were going to die by fire?

Movement caught the corner of his eye and he looked up to find Beverly exiting their bedroom, already showered and dressed in her uniform. It seemed both of them would be starting the day early. He rose from his chair, unsure of her mood and if he or anyone should be speaking to her this early. "Good morning," he said.

"I've always wanted to know why you do that," she said, without preamble.

He lifted both his eyebrows, wondering what exactly she was getting at. "Do what?" he asked.

"Do that." She pointed towards his waist.

"What?" He couldn't figure her out and sensed that even if he had, she wouldn't be letting him escape from the impending argument. The storm was on the horizon and he had no shelter at the ready.

"Do you enjoy being deliberately obtuse?" she asked, irritation clearly settling onto her face. "That thing you do with your jacket, every time you stand up, you straighten it. I don't think there's a single time that you don't. Why do you do it?"

It would have been easy and would disarm his wife's argumentative streak to reply with the truth—that the jacket tended to ride up. But he couldn't make himself give that answer. Beverly had woken up with the intent of starting an argument and he found that he had no qualms against engaging, not with the mood he was in himself. "Why do you leave all of your medical padds on every surface, complete with graphic descriptions of medical procedures?" He'd had the misfortune to pick on up from time to time, and because he was a quick reader, had more often than not made himself queasy at the information.

Her frown drew down the sides of her mouth and furrowed her brow. "At least one of us is open about things," she replied.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" She'd changed the subject of the conversation well away from the petty everyday irritations that one person could find in another and he needed to catch up to her before he found himself mired in a tactically disadvantaged position.

"It means you frighten me. You put fear into me through the actions that you choose and I hate that. I can't stand that you make me afraid, leaving me quaking like a small child, and then I'm angry that you can do that to me. I shouldn't have to be afraid, and certainly not from anything you've done. And yet there I was, angry and afraid because you'd broken your promise and once again hidden some important news from me, for whatever reasons your mind thinks is proper. Proper," she repeated, adding an element of his distinct inflection to her voice. "Did you really think it was proper to leave me out of the loop?" She paused in her rant, one brought out so quickly and easily that anyone could recognize it had waited for days for the moment to break free.

He wasn't sure if she meant to pause long enough to allow him to speak, but he wasn't going to let the opportunity go. "Beverly, I wasn't trying to hide—"

"You turned of the locating device on your communicator, so don't try telling me you weren't trying to hide. You made minutes of my life fake by not telling me what was in that message, by avoiding me when I tried to find you. In those minutes, I thought our daughter was still alive when she really wasn't. All those minutes, they were false ones, and I was in some sort of delusion that she was still alive."

"I wish I'd had those additional minutes, thinking she was still alive, taking comfort in that," he said, jealous of that time Beverly had because she'd yet to receive any message.

"There was no comfort in those minutes. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Are you even listening? They were filled with fear and anger, there's nothing comforting about either of those emotions, at least not to me. Maybe they are for you," she said, eyes narrowing, studying him to see if her supposition were true.

He took the pause for himself. "I wasn't trying to hide it," he explained again. "I was only trying to get control of my own reaction, my own emotions over it before I would be able to explain to you what had happened to Allie."

"If that's true, then why did you latch straight back onto duty as soon as you'd told me?"

"Because that's exactly what you did," he said.

"I was only trying to explain to you how she really di—"

He cut her off, not wanting to her the word 'died' in relation to their daughter. "By detaching from everything and using those cold medical terms that are always so graphically displayed on your padds, that's how. You reverted right back to being Beverly the doctor and not Beverly the mother so you wouldn't have to deal with how you felt. You did just what you're accusing me of doing." It had hurt him, while he had been trying to allow himself to feel while she was present so they could share in their reactions as he'd promised, that she had gone for the cover of being a physician.

"I needed to have control," she said. "So I could function."

"And don't you think that's just what I was doing? Duty is what keeps me grounded, I can control things when I'm the captain, at least in regards to my ship. I have to function as well and that means not neglecting my duty. I can't leave the ship short of its captain."

"Your duty to your ship," she said, emotion tightening up her speech, winding up the muscles of her once again lithe body. "And while you attend to that, you leave your family short its own captain."

Anger finally caught up to him, anger at her prodding at his most vulnerable areas, areas that only she could know, areas she was supposed to protect. "This family was short its captain long before now," he said, everything he'd been shoving away springing free of its box. "Because of what you chose to do, hiding the fact that was a family at all. You want me to attend to my duty here. Well, I want all those moments back, all the ones I missed because of you. I want to see their first steps, I want to hear their first words, I want to go with them to their first day of school," he took a breath, the hurt nearly cracking through the solid wall of anger that stood protecting his vulnerability. "I wanted to be with them when they first saw the stars and knew the wonder that they contained. And you made sure that didn't happen." He'd gone and done what she had, striking at where she was vulnerable, at that wound that guilt had never allowed to heal.

"You wouldn't have missed any of that if you'd chosen to stay," she said, her voice becoming louder in its attempt to draw on more anger to protect where she was most hurt. "It's a two-way street. If you hadn't left that night, if you hadn't taken the coward's way out, choosing duty over love, then you would have been there for all those firsts."

Her strike was as deadly as his, targeting his guilt over leaving, pinning him down for what he already blamed himself. He was afraid he was a coward and every day he sought to prove otherwise, but the evidence was there and could never be dispelled. His reply was a shout to cover the guilt, continuing the blame game that had started between them. "If you had chosen to contact me, then I could have—"

Another shout brought his tirade to a halt. "Stop! Stop it!" The shouting from the little girl that came running out of her room, her hands held over her ears, drowned out anything the two adults might have to say. "You have to stop!" Her gray eyes were wide with fear, while tears threatened in the background, but never seemed to form.

Both adults fell silent, a guilt drawing over them that they would share, yet neither would mention it to the other, of scaring their own daughter. The captain wondered exactly how much Gracie had heard, how much she might have taken to heart.

Biting her lower lip, Beverly snatched up the padds she'd left on the table, glaring at Picard as she did so, then left their quarters without another word.

He watched her go, his jaw working in its attempt to stem the anger, the hurt, and the sudden awful fear that she would leave him for good. When the doors shut, Gabriel's cries started up from the other room, equally as frustrated and angry as the rest of his family's. The captain went to pick him up, struggling to bring his anger and fear under control, so that the infant wouldn't continue to wail once he was in his arms. By the time he got to the crib, his breathing had slowed somewhat, enough to be able to lift the boy and have his cries begin to wane. Picard turned to find that Gracie had followed him, studying him quietly from the doorway. "He's upset too," she said.

"Yes," he replied, unsure of what else to say. The girl was far from stupid and she knew that the argument between her parents was far from over. It had only been interrupted and he hadn't the slightest idea how to explain it to her. He couldn't even explain it to himself.

So he busied the three of them with an abbreviated morning routine, one without Beverly, replicating breakfast for the little girl and for himself, calling up the program for the special formula for Gabriel, something that still bothered Beverly to do. He watched Gracie as he fed his infant son, struck by how quiet she was, and as he thought over the past few days as the ship traveled to the observatory, how quiet she had been the entire time. She'd yet to cry and that scared him, as the little girl wasn't the type to hold back on her emotions. He went and dressed his the boy and got him ready to take to the nursery while Gracie fetched her school things, having already dressed herself.

She held his hand as they walked towards the school, still oddly quiet, while her grip was tight and had a nearly imperceptible tremble. When they arrived, she went right into the classroom, not greeting her teacher, not saying anything to her father. The woman looked at the captain with a slight frown after watching Gracie go into the classroom.

"Yes," he said, answering the teacher's unasked question. "She's still having a lot of difficulty."

"Has she spoken at all with Counselor Troi?"

"Some, but she hasn't been very forthcoming about how she's feeling and keeps brushing Deanna off."

"She was very close to her, wasn't she?"

He knew the teacher meant Allie and not the counselor. "We all were," he said. "Just...keep an eye on her."

The teacher nodded. "Of course. Have a good day, Captain."

Gabriel had stayed as quiet as his sister and looked curiously around him as Picard made his way to the nursery. He felt very domestic, uncomfortable with the argument that had occurred an hour ago, yet comfortable in this role he'd taken with the children. Ensign Kai flashed him a smile when he went inside the nursery's main room. Gabriel shifted in Picard's grip at seeing his other caretaker. The captain gave the ensign a small smile, an attempt to lighten the troubling mood he'd brought with him when he'd entered. "I think he likes you more than he likes me," he said, holding the boy out for the young woman to take after he'd kissed his small son on the forehead.

"Oh, no, Captain. I assure you that isn't true. He gets awfully grumpy for half an hour after he realizes that either you or the doctor have left him behind."

"He doesn't—"

"No, sir. It isn't like before, not at all. I mean, he reacts like any other infant when they're left by a parent in the hands of others. It's a good thing, I promise."

He nodded. "Right. Well, one of us will be by to pick him up at the end of the day shift. Anything sooner, or later, and you'll be notified."

"As usual, Captain."

Leaving his son behind, Picard headed for the peaceful retreat of his ready room, where he'd intended on going once the argument had wound down, where he usually went after any sort of argument. Except his retreat had been disrupted by the duties he had to his children and making sure they were taken care of before he tended to his own needs, emotional or physical.

He found Will Riker already occupying the captain's chair when he stepped from the turbolift to the bridge. Riker stood up. "Good morning, Captain."

Picard nodded a greeting. "Report, Number One."

"We're nearing the Amargosa Observatory. Estimated time of arrival is sixty-three minutes. We should be within sensor range within forty-six minutes."

"And the transport shuttle?"

"The shuttle successfully docked, offloaded, and departed the observatory three hours ago."

Relief once again relaxed the captain's body. Andrew was safe, he was off the shuttle and on the observatory, he wouldn't die like Allie had in Q's future, he wouldn't lose the both of them. "You have the bridge, Commander," he said. "I'll be in my ready room."

For a moment, Will's eyes drew a look of concern, and that he might vocalize that concern to his captain. Then he chose to remain quiet for the time being, and merely nodded as Picard turned and disappeared into the sanctum of his office.

With the news of the transport's arrival, Picard's mind had shifted from the intense confrontation earlier that morning and to his older son. He found that he couldn't bring himself to sit down, the tension returning to his muscles. Andrew returning home would bring yet another element of unease, as Andrew's reactions tended toward the intense cold of hidden emotion, much the same as Beverly was trying to do and not bringing off very well. The captain figured the boy's feelings on Allie's death would be even more intense than his own or Beverly's, as Allie had been his twin. Andrew had also been through the trauma of the fire, of hearing the screams and the crackling of the flames, of not being able to go back in and bring any of them to safety, especially his twin sister. Allie had been the one person who could reach Andrew when he was most upset, the one person who could anchor him when he tried to retreat within himself.

The scene at the end of the Vendange competition entered the forefront of his mind, when neither he nor Beverly had the slightest idea of what to do to comfort Andrew, while without pause, Allie had gone straight to him. Once she had spoken with him, he'd gone from the grim shame of disappointing himself to the bright smile they all loved to see on the boy.

The captain realized he didn't know who could bring that smile back anymore, or even if it could be brought back, as Allie was now gone. Despair traveled through him, an incursion of sorrow like that night when he'd paged through the family album, at all the memories they had left of Allie, at all they had left of her. That all they would have left between those of them that remained would be that cold air and the heated arguments like from this morning, tinged with a coldness that allowed them to hurt one another without compunction.

The door chimed and he didn't bother to look away from the long window. "Come." He watched the reflection on the transparent aluminum as Deanna Troi entered his ready room. "What can I do for you, Counselor?" he asked, turning toward her as he finally sat down in his chair.

Her dark Betazoid eyes clearly showed the concern that had only briefly shown on Riker's strong features. "Actually, I'm here to see if there's anything I could do for you," she said.

His first impulse was to deny anything was wrong at all, to tell her he was fine, and she could be useful elsewhere. Then Allie's words came to him, the ones she'd almost prophetically uttered at learning their fates in Q's twisted future. _"You were determined to wither away in your self-imposed isolation."_

So the captain haltingly tried to explain what had happened that morning. "We...Beverly and I...we had...an argument," he said, unsure of how to word it. It wasn't any normal disagreement that was bound to happen between married couples, between any couples at all. Those arguments he'd become accustomed to, as much as anyone was able.

Deanna took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. "What can you tell me about it?"

"It's like some terrible storm from which we can't seem to escape," he said, his eyes losing focus as he saw Beverly's expressions from that morning, as he saw Gracie's delicate features marred by the pain at hearing and seeing her parents fight in such a hurtful manner. "And Gracie heard us, then she came out of her room shouting at us to stop. We did, but it was clear that the argument wasn't over."

"And you assume that Gracie knows that?"

"She's very perceptive, Deanna."

Troi nodded. "All of them are, Captain. Did you know that Gabriel had started crying right around the time you read that message on the holodeck?"

His eyes snapped out of his reverie and to the counselor. "No, I didn't."

Deanna leaned forward on her elbows. "Both you and Beverly need to come to terms with both yourselves and one another over your past before you can even begin to come to terms with Allie's death. As long as you continue not to acknowledge what needs to be discussed and worked out over what happened between you that led to your children not becoming a part of your life until last year, the tension will only continue to rise. You've already seen that Gabriel can pick up on the palpable tension between you, that Gracie can't even seem to bring herself to react outwardly to what's hurting her. Andrew will be even more sensitive to it when he returns. They'll all be upset as they watch their parents hurt one another because they were both too stubborn to give in and admit that one, they both were hurt by the other, and two, that they were both in the wrong in some way."

The captain pushed away the strange sense of deja vu that drifted onto him, that he'd already had a conversation like this with Deanna. Probably in Q's future, when he and Beverly had managed to do a great deal of psychological damage to one another over Allie's death in that time period. And he realized he had to talk, even as he wanted to close up because Beverly refused to acknowledge that he was trying to be open, and would strike at him when he did open up, intentionally causing him pain. "Counselor, I don't even know where to begin with her," he said.

"I think we should start with the three of us meeting together," she said. "Why don't you tell me when you're schedule is free and then I'll speak with Bev—"

Data's voice coming in over the comm interrupted Troi. "Data to Captain Picard. We're picking up a distress call from the Amargosa observatory. They say they're under attack."

"On my way." Fear sent the captain to his feet and quickly to the bridge. "Red alert! All hands to battle stations," he said before the door had even started to close behind him. Having been closer to the entrance, Troi had exited before him.

"We are within visual range, Captain," said Data from his position at Ops.

"On screen."

Data tapped the control panel in front of him and the image of the station jumped into life on the viewscreen. The observatory hung precariously in front of them, scorch marks scarring it surface, breeches in the hull spewing out oxygen, and there was no indication of the vessel that had attacked it.

"It looks like we're too late," said Will, standing just behind the captain.

_We didn't arrive in time after all_. The realization that his son could be dead petrified the captain as he stood on his bridge.

"There are no other ships in the system," Worf said from tactical.

_Of course not. They'd gotten away. The unknown attackers who killed my son, like the unknown arsonist who killed my daughter._ Picard didn't move, frozen, trying to remember how to breathe.

His crew continued to announce their assessment of the situation. "Sensors show five life signs aboard the station," said Data.

"The station complement was nineteen," said Riker, his own tone becoming despondent, as the captain's thoughts had already become.

It was Deanna who finally voiced what they were all thinking, what scared them all. "Andrew was on that station."

A weak strand of hope that attempted to break through the fear met without success. Picard couldn't bring himself to look at the station on the viewscreen any longer, and there was no way he could possibly go on board the observatory. "Secure from red alert." He looked at his first officer. "Number One, begin an investigation. I'll be in my ready room." He wouldn't be able to see the damaged observatory from there.

Riker and Troi exchanged matching looks of confusion and concern. "Sir?" asked Will.

The captain set his face to steel, his look impenetrable, masking everything. "Make it so," he said, resolute.

As he the doors of his ready room closed off the bridge behind him, he heard Will giving orders to handle the situation. "Deanna, Worf, you're with me."

The captain dropped into his chair, his head then dropping into his hands, no longer able to keep his eyes open as his life continued to fall apart around him.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

The uncomfortable silence started in the turbolift. Deanna Troi resisted the urge to grimace at the dark directions the emotions of the crew around her were taking. Already the crew had taken in the news about the captain and doctor's daughter, and most of them knew that Andrew was meeting them on the now ravaged observatory that waited beside the ship. Both the captain and the doctor were well liked and respected by the crew, and in the months Allie had been aboard, she'd also gained that same respect. The crew also exhibited and felt a great deal responsibility for Allie and her siblings, that somehow they were also charged with their safety. To hear that one of their own had died in a manner that none of them could have prevented had hit the crew hard as a whole—nothing to say of how hard it had hit the captain and the doctor.

Deanna had known that this development would be difficult for Beverly and the captain, but she hadn't suspected it would go as far as it had. The emotions she'd sensed from both of them held a deep seated fear, both from not having control over what had happened to their daughter, but of losing control of their own reactions, and fear of losing what they had together. And if Andrew wasn't alive on that station, the counselor was certain that Beverly and Jean-Luc would end up going in separate ways, and somehow still fulfilling that bleak future Q had shown the captain.

Will seemed to be following her thoughts. "He has to be alive," he said.

"He will be," Worf said.

Riker raised an eyebrow at the security chief.

"He is a warrior," Worf clarified, then his expression changed, the sureness of before washed away by doubt, a very alien feeling for the Klingon. "Yet Allie was a warrior as well."

Troi almost fell backwards at the force of the frustration that rolled through Worf.

"It was an accident. It was meaningless. It is not right that she should die such a meaningless death. She will not enter Sto-Vo-Kor. Yet if Andrew has died in this battle, he _will_ enter Sto-Vo-Kor with honor. But he wouldn't want that, because then he would never be with his twin again." Worf looked at the two others in the turbolift. "So he cannot be dead."

Will had latched onto the first part of Worf's words. "I heard it wasn't an accident," he said. "A new report came out saying that it was arson."

"Is that a final report?" Deanna asked.

Riker nodded. "At least for that part. They have no idea who the suspect is, but all of them were stunned by a phaser before the fire was started. By the time they woke up...it was too late."

"Dishonorable," said Worf. "The coward's way out. He gave them no chance to fight and every chance to suffer."

"But maybe it makes it a little less meaningless," Will said, looking at the security chief. "I mean, if the arsonist had a purpose, whatever it might be, it means that Allie dying wasn't just some cosmic accident."

The turbolift halted and they moved to the transporter room. Two more security officers, two med techs and a couple science officers waited for them on the pad. Worf continued the conversation from the turbolift with only a nod to the other crewmembers. "It means we will have someone who will have to answer for what happened."

"I think we need to concentrate on finding Andrew on this observatory first," said Deanna, following the men onto the transporter pad.

Will looked as if he wanted to say more, but stopped when he recalled the junior officers that stood with them now, and declined to continue the conversation that junior officers shouldn't be privy to. So instead, he nodded at the transporter chief. "Energize."

When they materialized, they found themselves in a cramped room that used to be the wide-open control center of the observatory. Blown out consoles tossed out sparks as fallen bulkheads creaked ominously around them. Acrid smoke had nearly replaced the breathable atmosphere in the station. All the members of the away team, except for the security contingent, immediately pulled out their tricorders and set to scanning. The security officers formed a perimeter to protect the officers conducting the search. Squinting through the smoke to see the readout on her tricorder, Deanna also reached out with her empathic senses, trying to find the unique imprint of Andrew's mind.

"These blast patterns are consistent with type-III disruptors," Worf said, bending to closely examine a scorch mark on a broken wall.

Will frowned. "That narrows it down to Klingon, Breen, or Romulan."

Troi had to tamp down the hope that wanted to infuse her voice when she called out her newest readings. "I'm picking up life signs about ten meters ahead." Already, she'd quickened her walk to where the life signs lay.

"That rules out Klingons," Worf said, following the counselor.

Will stopped and looked at Worf, eyebrow raised at him yet again.

"They would not have left anyone alive," Worf said, as if his answer were entirely obvious.

Riker didn't question it and instead followed Worf and the counselor as they picked their way through the debris. "I've found someone!" a tech ahead of them called out, shoving aside half a shattered control panel. "I think it's the captain's son."

Deanna reached out with her mind again and felt it, faintly, but did feel Andrew's presence. Then the rough, weak voice that spoke up from under the debris confirmed it. "I've got my own name, you know."

Relief welcomed her, it seemed there would be some hope for them after all. She snapped the tricorder shut and plunged through the wreckage. She found the tech simultaneously running scans on the boy, trying to prevent him from moving, and not finding much success in keeping Andrew still. Deanna earned a grateful look when she kneeled down next to them.

The counselor saw that Andrew had a large swollen lump on his temple with a laceration down the middle of it, already crusted over with blood and dust. His eyes were slightly dazed, his pupils dilated differently from each other. Most likely, he had some sort of concussion, but it would be something treatable.

Andrew caught sight of the counselor. "I guess I'm not dead."

"No," she said. "You're not. We'll be bringing you onto the ship soon."

Andrew stopped resisting the tech's hands that were trying to get him to lay back and did exactly that, his eyes becoming vacant as they stared at the ceiling. "Too bad," he said, his voice the whisper of sandpaper. "I wanted to see Allie."

Deanna automatically reached out for his hand, wanting to tell him that he didn't mean that, but having the unfortunate ability to know that he meant what he said, she didn't do so. He'd come to the conclusion, between the attack starting and them finding him just now, that he was ready to die, and thereby ready to see his sister again. He'd even come to look forward to it, because he felt that hopelessly lost without his twin. Troi also heard the uncomfortable silence drop between them all again, louder than ever in its discomfort, because no one knew what the right thing to say would be.

Loud banging from behind another fallen bulkhead broke the silence. Worf and Riker climbed over to the source of the sound while the medical technician continued to make sure Andrew was stabilized enough for travel.

"Under here," said Worf, motioning towards a large metal plate. Will moved forward and the two tall men lifted the plate and tossed it over to the side. A hand came out as they dug through the rest of the debris that had buried the man who had gotten their attention. Worf grasped the man's hand. "Do not struggle," he said.

Together, they pulled the survivor free of the rubble. The man blinked at the sudden shift in lighting, stumbling in a daze until another medical tech helped him to the ground and started a scan.

Will bent down to greet him. "I'm Commander Riker of the USS _Enterprise_."

"Soran," said the white-haired man. "Doctor Tolian Soran."

"Who attacked you?" Riker asked, getting straight to the point.

Deanna tried to get a sense of Soran's mind, but found it impenetrable in a certain way, a way that seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it. She glanced back and Andrew and found that he was studying Soran intently.

"I'm not sure," said Soran, looking right back at Andrew. "It all happened so fast..."

Will turned to Andrew. "Did you see who attacked the station?"

"No," he replied, and didn't offer any additional information, just looked back up at the ceiling. Then he seemed to remember something and jerked up into a sitting position, drawing the ire of the tech trying to stabilize him. Next he was getting to his feet and scrabbling over the rubble towards the other parts of the observatory before anyone caught on to his true intentions.

"Hey!" shouted the tech, scrambling to catch up to him. "You've got a head injury, you really shouldn't be walking!"

"I'm fine," Andrew said, not looking back at the others. "I'll be right back."

The medic, completely confused, halted her chase and turned to the counselor. "What the hell is he doing?"

Deanna had been wondering as well, with the sudden switch of Andrew's listlessness into a driving purpose. He wasn't delusional, but he certainly did have significant head trauma, and while his injuries weren't life threatening, if he continued running through the station, he stood a good chance of doing some significant damage. The counselor went after him, passing the medic and using her empathic abilities to track the boy down. His emotions had gone from dim and cloudy to a strong summer sun, impossibly bright compared to before. She heard footsteps shuffling beyond a half-blocked doorway, then the sound of paws on metal. _Conal_. Andrew had gone searching for his dog. Right now, that companion was incredibly important to his psychological well-being. He'd been given the dog when he was younger to help make him feel protected from the nightmares that plagued him. Now, she was certain Andrew would be having more nightmares, inevitable because of the depth of loss he'd experienced. The wolfhound would again provide a feeling of constant safety in one element of the boy's life.

Troi rounded the corner of the doorway and found Andrew meticulously checking over the wolfhound for injuries. "I think he's okay," he said. Deanna sensed the relief Andrew felt at finding the dog uninjured, but almost right away, that relief was chased out by sadness. "Allie would've known for sure. He should probably still see the vet that's on the ship."

Will had walked up behind the counselor. "I'll take care of him, Andrew," he said. "But you've got to at least sit down until we can transport you to the ship." Riker inclined his head in the direction of the med tech. "That medic is panicking over the possibility of you hurting yourself more by walking around."

Andrew looked over at the medic. "I think she's more worried about what my mother would do to her."

"I don't sense that from her," said Troi.

The boy raised an eyebrow in the counselor's direction, an expression Deanna was very familiar with in both of his parents. If the situation hadn't been laced with seriousness, she would have laughed aloud at the similarity. "Okay, perhaps a little. But her major concern is your health and safety, not hers, or what anyone else might think."

Andrew nodded. "Right," he said, agreement and not sarcasm in his tone. "How long will it take—"

"Commander, you'd better take a look at this!" One of the roving security officers interrupted Andrew's question.

Worf reached the other officer's position first. "Romulans," he said, and the rest of them confirmed the statement with their eyes, seeing the dead body of a Romulan officer face-down on the deck.

"Worf, I want you to call for a larger security team and conduct a sweep of the entire observatory. I need to know if there are any survivors, Romulan or otherwise."

"Sir." The Klingon moved to a working comm panel and summoned more officers to add to the team already on the station.

Will turned to face Andrew, who had followed the rest of the officers in inspecting the body that had been found. "You still aren't sitting down, which means I think you need to be transported back to the ship before you _do_ hurt yourself. Dr. Soran needs to go as well—" he glanced at the medic, who nodded a confirmation of Will's assessment "—so, Deanna, I want you and Ensign Labonte to beam directly to sickbay with these two. I'll need the one of the medics here with me in case we find anyone else."

Hearing the order, Ensign Labonte reached out and placed a firm hand on Andrew's shoulder in order to keep him close by.

Andrew scowled, first at the medic, then at the first officer. "What about—"

"I'm on that," Will said, pointing towards one of the science officers. "Ensign, I want you to beam back to the ship and see that this dog gets seen by the vet right away. Only once Conal is safely back in Andrew's quarters are you to return to this observatory."

The boy tried objecting again. "But—"

Again, Will cut Andrew off, tapping his communicator. "Riker to _Enterprise_. Three to beam directly to sickbay."

Andrew's resulting objection was swallowed up by the transporter beam that formed around him and continued as they materialized on the ship. "I think I should be the one..." he trailed off, frowning as he realized that Will was no longer there to hear his protests because he was already aboard the ship. "Dammit."

The medical team of nurses and the treating physicians were waiting for them, and started moving their respective patients towards treatment beds. Selar, without exchanging a word with her supervisor, went directly to help Soran. There wouldn't be a question about who would be treating Andrew. For a moment, Beverly just stood there, the others stepping around her like water coursing around a rock. Once she glanced at the doctor and observed her reaction, Alyssa Ogawa stepped forward helped Ensign Labonte get Andrew into a biobed. "He has a mid-grade concussion and small skull fracture," the medic explained, reading from her tricorder. "There's also the laceration on his forehead, presumably from a piece of falling debris."

"A support truss," Andrew said. "It was a support truss."

Labonte looked up from her readouts long enough to fix a look on Andrew. "Falling debris," she repeated, then went back to her tricorder. "He was barely conscious when we found him, apparently just beginning to regain consciousness. I was assessing his condition when he got up and starting scrambling through the debris to get to another part of the observatory."

As Labonte gave her report, Ogawa managed to intimidate Andrew enough to get him onto the biobed, even as he rolled his eyes at the medic recounting what had happened on the observatory. But once Andrew was laying on the biobed, his face went pale, sweat broke out on his forehead and he stopped with his remarks.

Beverly finally came around and remembered her ability to speak. Andrew's swift change in demeanor meant one of his injuries had gotten worse. In an instant, she was next to her son's bed, running another scan with a higher-grade of tricorder they kept in the sickbay facility. "You shouldn't be conscious," she said, reaching out with her hand and placing it on the uninjured part forehead. "And you really shouldn't have been walking around." The doctor paused, as if waiting for her son to make some sort of dry comment, but he said nothing. Instead, his eyes were closing and while he seemed to be fighting it, his mind and body had decided that unconsciousness was the better option.

Deanna watched, both with her eyes and with her empathy, as Beverly worked to heal her son, re-routing all of her emotions related to being his mother and pouring them into her ability as a physician. The medic was dismissed without a word from the doctor. As Deanna waited, Soran was treated and released by Selar. It took well over an hour to treat the boy's injuries and during all that time, the captain hadn't visited sickbay, and Beverly hadn't thought of anything except the medical tasks she had in front of her in her son.

Gradually, the activity around Andrew's bed became to taper off until it was only Beverly standing next to him, her hand absently resting on the top of his head. Only for the briefest of moments had the doctor not been in some sort of physical contact with her son, reassuring herself that he indeed was real and alive. Deanna rose from the chair she'd found alongside the wall and went over to her friend. "He'll be okay?" she asked, keeping her voice down out of respect for the quietness in the room.

Beverly looked away from Andrew and at the counselor, nodding. "He will." She ran her hand through his short-cropped hair and reluctantly drew it away. "He almost did a number on himself, walking around the observatory after taking a blow to the head like he did. I'm glad Will figured out he wasn't going to cooperate and sent him up here right away. That poor ensign was way out of her league. She didn't stand a chance." There was a hint of a smile painted at the corner of her mouth, but it wouldn't have fooled any observer, and certainly not an empath.

"How long will he have to say unconscious?" Troi asked.

"Another thirty minutes or so, just to make sure his skull fracture has knitted together properly, and the swelling has entirely subsided in his brain." Beverly's eyes had drifted back to her son, as if she were just realizing that he was right there in front of her, and no longer out of reach.

"He's really there, Beverly," Deanna said, stepping closer.

The doctor placed her hand on Andrew's chest. The counselor sensed the comfort Beverly sought—feeling the rise and fall of her son's chest as he continued to breathe.

"You didn't lose him."

Beverly didn't acknowledge her friend's statement. Instead, she snatched a padd from one of the counters near Andrew's bed and made some notations.

Deanna wanted to scowl at Beverly's ironclad case she had boxed up her feelings in, at how when she wasn't looking, the doctor had switched places with her husband in terms of how they reacted emotionally. Instead of the captain holding in all of his emotions, pretending they didn't exist, refusing to acknowledge them at all, it was Beverly doing that. And in her stead, the captain's grip on his own outward reactions was tenuous at best. His recent spate of retreating to his ready room more often than not bore witness to that fact. He often used his office to regain his composure when deeply struck by something, but it had been a rare event. The rare had changed common a few days ago. The counselor suspected that the captain was still up there now, debating on when he should go down to sickbay and see his son.

Troi glanced at Beverly, still busy with the padd, and probably intended to be until she got Deanna to lose interest and walk away.

Which Deanna had no intention of doing. The case she had before her, of the Picard family and all of their complicated pasts and complex relationships, would be one of the hardest she'd ever encountered. Or would probably encounter at all in her career as a clinician. Not only did she have the relationship between Beverly and the captain to help guide, but there would be Andrew's recovery as a surviving co-twin. That relationship alone, that of twins, intimidated her with its depth. Twin studies had gone on for centuries, across all the species of the Federation, and still they'd yet to solve the mystery. Then there was the atypical reaction from Gracie, how she'd suddenly become like her father and brother, withdrawing within herself, almost becoming Vulcan-like in her mannerisms and speaking.

Troi watched as Beverly slowly took a step away from her son's bed, so reluctant to move away, like he'd disappear if she stopped looking at him. Yet her feelings that Deanna could sense revealed nothing, only the slightest hints of what she truly felt underneath all that Vulcan-like control. So the counselor decided to try and break it. "You had an argument this morning," she said, deciding to make her question so closed-ended that it became a statement of fact.

"I see that Jean-Luc spoke to you." Beverly didn't make eye contact with her friend, instead she took a hypospray from a drawer and began to calibrate it.

"I'd like to sit down with the both of you and have a talk," Troi said.

"Right," said the doctor. "I'll let you know when I'm available." Then she picked up another padd and entered some data into it as she checked the hypo again. "Could you do me a favor?"

Deanna nodded, stunned into silence by Beverly's quick dismissal of her suggestion. "Sure."

"Could you please fetch Gracie from her class so she can see her brother? I'll be waking him up in about twenty minutes."

"Yes, I could—"

"Okay. Thank you." Beverly then turned and walked into her office.

Deanna left sickbay, feeling as summarily dismissed as the medic had been.

* * *

_The shuttle's bulkheads shuddered around them as it landed on the hard floor of the Delos IV medical facility's shuttlebay. Andrew Howard gripped his sister's hand even more tightly, trusting her to listen for him, because he could only feel the ship's landing—he couldn't hear a thing. _

_ Allie turned to look at him. "Don't worry," she said. "We're going to see Beverly. She'll make you better."_

_He recognized one word she said—Beverly. For everything else, he relied on his sister's eyes, telling him that he would get better, she was certain. If he'd trusted himself to talk, he would have asked who Beverly was. Whenever her name was mentioned, a vague image would drift lazily through his mind, of a tall lady with red hair, a lady with kind blue eyes that could make you feel safe. So he nodded to his sister and that was all the confirmation she needed of his understanding._

_The moment of safety departed as soon as they departed the shuttle, the activity around them frightening Andrew into walking as close to his grandmother as possible, letting his sister walk ahead of them, like a scout. When they entered another large room, and Beverly stood there—he remembered her now—the fear still held him, squeezing his chest so tightly that he felt as if his eyes would pop out. So it was Allie who stepped forward and he watched as she spoke with Beverly._

_During their whole trip, he relied on his sister to speak with others and make sure they wouldn't hurt him. When he saw Allie give Beverly that look he got so often, the one that told him she was annoyed with him, he knew it was safe. Only the people Allie approved of could get that certain look from her._

_So the boy stepped out from behind Nana, allowing himself to smile, because Allie had told him it was okay._

Andrew Picard felt the bright overhead lights pressing on his eyelids before he even opened his eyes. Hearing the movement of people nearby took his by surprise, he thought he would be deaf, like he'd been before he woke up. But that was it, he'd woken up, it had been a dream, he wasn't three years old anymore, and he wouldn't have his sister there with him ever again. But that fear remained, squeezing his chest, making it hard to breathe. He opened his eyes and flinched at the brightness, then slowly grew used to it and took a look around him.

No one had noticed yet that he'd awakened. He glanced at the counter beside the bed they'd put him on and saw an unused hypo. Apparently they were going to choose the time when he would wake up, not wait for him to do so. And apparently, he'd woken up early. Already he was remembering how he'd acted in those moments on the observatory, ditching the medic and giving Commander Riker a hard time. Then he'd even argued with Lieutenant Ogawa before passing out. At least, he figured that's what'd happened, unless his mother had dosed him. He frowned and started to sit up.

Which immediately got the attention of one of the nurses, who glanced in his direction and practically bolted for the chief medical officer's office. When he saw his mother walk out, annoyance at him written on her face, the tightness in his chest started to fade. This was an annoyance he was used to and he saw often enough, her being irritated with him over shrugging off medical treatment. "If you want to be the one to wake me up," he said, his voice rough from his dry mouth, "I can pretend to be asleep."

"You aren't supposed to be awake yet," she replied, opening the tricorder and running a scan on him.

As she scanned him, it gave him the opportunity to study her face and see the worry lines that had formed on her forehead, to see how her eyes seemed veiled, as if they were masking something. Immediately, he knew she was masking her reactions from everyone, the reactions she was having over what had happened to Allie. He knew it because it was exactly what he thought he would do. The fact that he hadn't took him by surprise and he barely knew what to do and he couldn't stop his reactions, the mask just wouldn't fit anymore.

Looking closely at his mother, he saw that the mask also fit awkwardly on her, but it seemed she was determined to keep it in place as well as she could. "You seem to be healed up fairly well," she said. "I suppose I could allow you to leave sickbay in the near future."

"Well, I do have a doctor that lives in the same quarters I do. I heard she's a pretty good one, too." He grinned at her, a small one, expressing some of the relief he felt at arriving safely home.

She returned his smile, but no truth was behind it. "Counselor Troi's gone to get your sister," she said.

He wondered how Gracie was handling this, if she was faring any better than the rest of them. She probably was, considering how well she seemed to handle everything else life threw at her. Andrew gave the room another look around. "Where's Papa?"

"I don't know," Beverly said, immediately breaking eye contact and inputing data on the padd she'd picked up when she had finished her scan.

And Andrew realized that neither of his parents were taking it well and instead were taking it out on each other. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed, now unsettled, afraid of what was happening between his parents. He couldn't deal with anymore change. He shifted again, remembering what he'd said to the counselor before he'd really become aware of his surroundings on the wrecked station, and knew that Counselor Troi would be after him soon to talk about it. The thought intimidated him, the whole idea of talking about what had happened in any way, and yet, he didn't resent it. He had no plans on running if the counselor approached him. It didn't mean he'd go looking for it, but he wouldn't walk away from it if offered. At this point, he'd do anything to keep all of them together, as it seemed that no one else was even bothering to try.

No longer able to let the silence continue, Andrew asked, "Is it okay if I stand up and walk around?" Before she'd given her answer, he was already swinging his legs off the bed and standing up. Unlike when he'd stood up on the observatory, his head didn't try to swim away this time.

Beverly shook her head. "I don't know why you even bother to ask."

"I was trying to be polite," he said. "There _are_ times when I'm civiliz—"

The main sickbay door had opened to admit Gracie and she'd run inside and flung her arms around her brother's legs without saying a word. He bent to her level and she put her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said back, muffled, and then said nothing else.

Andrew had thought his younger sister would have something to say, as she always had something to say, and he found himself frowning as she continued to keep quiet. "Are you okay?" he asked her, pitching his voice so that only Gracie would hear his question.

"I'm fine," she said.

Surprised, he shifted her so that she'd have to look at him, and looked her straight in the eye, eyes identical to his own. Except they weren't like his anymore, they were like his mother's, masked, hiding whatever she really felt. Understanding what her brother's look questioned, she said, "I am."

As if the little girl's true feelings were transferred over to his brother, Andrew suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable, lost, and the tears he'd thought he'd cried out of himself earlier on the transport ship threatened to return. Everything had changed and continued to change. Home didn't feel like home anymore. Already, his younger brother would grow up in a home drastically different than Andrew had thought, that anyone had thought. He wouldn't know Allie and now it seemed that he wouldn't know his parents or his other sister as Andrew had come to know them. Fear ran through him that he would lose control of the tears in the middle of sickbay, in front of everyone.

From her spot standing just inside the doorway, the counselor looked over at him. He saw in her caring dark eyes that she had sensed his trouble. Troi walked over to where he stood holding his sister. "Gracie," she said, her tone gentle. "Would you like to go to Ten-Forward for lunch? You're out of school, you might as well have a treat."

Gracie shrugged. "Okay," she said.

Andrew put her down and watched as Gracie quietly took the counselor's hand and followed her out of the room without a backwards glance. He'd barely had time to register what had just happened and think over what he would say to his mother about it in an attempt to get her to open up, when his father strode into sickbay, his troubled thoughts clear on his face for anyone to see. "I heard that you were quite a challenge to the medic that tried to treat you on the observatory," he said, discomfort obvious in his stiff body language, yet with his tone making an attempt at levity. It served well enough to allow Andrew to recover from his moment of vulnerability. Then he noticed that the captain didn't look at his wife right away, even though she stood just beyond where Andrew stood.

"I was only keeping her on her toes," Andrew replied, watching as his father finally glanced at his mother. The frigid air that swept between them nearly made him shiver. Anger burned away the coldness from Andrew, anger at his parents for being so unwilling to work with one another when things took a turn for the worse. They were better people than that, he knew that about them. Everyone did. He glared at one, and then the other, determined to bring them around. "I think the last thing Allie would have wanted would be for you two to alienate one another."

Andrew saw his father's mask take on a crack, the troubled thoughts giving way to the troubled emotions behind them. He glanced at his mother and she looked as if she might say something related to what he'd said to them, then she changed her mind. "I need to go check on your brother." She turned and departed without any further explanation.

His eyebrows raised, his look went back to his father. The captain gave his son a slight shrug of defeat. "I don't know. I can't figure it out." Unsure of what to say next, Picard went for the mundane. "I trust the transport from Earth was all right?"

"Yeah," Andrew said, relieved now that the subject had been changed, able to think about something ordinary while studying his father, seeing that he knew the wicked twist that had been applied to his wish. The wish they had all shared, that Q's future wouldn't come true.

And truly, it hadn't. This was a different future, at least in terms of actual events, but the emotional fallout would be the same. It had started already, but now the reactions had been reversed. It was his mother who drove everyone away by being closed off to everything except anger. And he saw that it was his father who blamed himself for what he took to be the beginning of the end of his marriage. But Andrew had no intentions of letting that happen, Allie had already said exactly what she didn't want to happen, and he would make sure that her words were obeyed.

Somehow.

An apology came to mind, one he should say to his father for what he'd said to him on Earth, about wishing for something to come true, getting it, then not being so sure anymore. He felt that this could be his fault, that if he hadn't said that, then this wish wouldn't have come true in such an awful way.

But he couldn't bring himself to do it, because if he said it aloud in an apology, what had happened would doubly become his fault. First he'd said those telling words and then he hadn't been able to save her when he should have. So he couldn't say it, even as the apology beat against the wall he built around it.

Commander Riker walked into sickbay, saving Andrew from figuring out what to say in place of the apology he should say. "Captain, Dr. Soran is insisting on meeting you."

Picard turned to his first officer, mask slipping mostly into place. "Right now?"

Will nodded. "He is fairly...insistent on the matter."

The captain frowned. "Where is he now?"

"Ten-Forward."

"I'm going, too," Andrew said before Picard could give an answer.

Both men looked at him in surprise. "You need to stay here in sickbay," said the captain.

Andrew grabbed the padd his mother had left on the counter. "No, I don't. Mom already filled out the discharge form. I just need a doctor to sign it." He looked around and found that Selar was only a few feet away. After getting her attention, he tossed the padd in her direction.

The Vulcan caught it easily, then pursed her lips slightly as she read the information. "It seems you are correct," she said, tapping on the padd. "You are discharged from medical care at this time."

"Right then," said Andrew, looking towards the two command officers.

The captain left sickbay and Andrew followed. He knew he would be allowed to because he wasn't told otherwise. Once they'd entered the turbolift, he tried to explain why he'd wanted to go as well. "Dr. Soran...there's something different about him," he said. "I mean, he knew who I was before I even introduced myself."

Picard raised an eyebrow at him. "It's not uncommon for a station's director or commanding officer to know who will be staying on board for any amount of time. In fact, it is an established guideline."

Andrew shook his head. "It's different from that, I know that type of this is normal. When I shook his hand, it was almost like he _knew_ me. Not only that, but from what he said, I think he knows what happened...on Earth. When he says anything, it isn't an accident. You can tell that each thing his says, every word that comes out of his mouth, is precisely chosen. He knows something, I'm certain." As he said the words aloud for the first time, fear dashed over his arms, leaving cold wherever it stepped.

"That's impossible," said the captain. "I realize that you, like the rest of us, are looking for an answer, for a culprit, but I think you're stretching a little too far to find one."

Apparently, it was something a person had to experience in speaking with Soran. "Fine," he said, moving his gaze to study the closed 'lift doors in front of them. "See for yourself."


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Tolian Soran drummed the fingers of his right hand on the table in front of him while his left hand held his pocketwatch, his cold blue eyes studying the watch's face intently. Time, to him, had become a person, and this watch was its embodiment. Each time the doors to Ten-Forward had opened, Soran had looked up to see who had walked in. Each time, he was disappointed that it wasn't the ship's captain. He was the man he needed to see, he was the man he needed to influence at this point in time, as well as some points in time prior, and from this point forward. As the Terrans would say, Picard was to become his go-to man, even though he hadn't yet to realize it.

The doors opened again and while it wasn't the captain, it was his younger daughter. His only daughter, now. The little auburn haired girl walked beside the ship's counselor, speaking very little while the counselor chatted away. Keeping his gaze mostly on his watch, Soran managed to observe the two as they took seats at another table in the middle of the lounge. The girl's vital data passed though his mind. Mary Grace Picard, five years old, born on Delos IV to Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Picard. To the Federation, two very important people. And to him, her parents were very important indeed.

As he observed, the child seemed to cheer up, the counselor finally able to bring a smile to Gracie's face. Seeing that, Soran had to close his eyes. His own daughter had been only five years old when the Borg attacked his homeworld. The cyborgs had attacked in waves while they enveloped the entire planet in a network of ships to prevent the El-Aurians from escape in their own ships. Soran and his family had lived on one of the more remote continents and had been one of the last areas attacked. They had been trapped, unable to escape, all while knowing what was coming—they would become one of them. One of the Borg.

2292

They waited in their house, gathered in the main living area, all five of them—his wife of thirty years, their two young sons, their little daughter. Hani's birthday had been the week before the Borg showed up. She had enjoyed an entire week of being five years old before being catapulted into the harsh reality of adulthood. Soran looked over the heads of his children and at his wife, both of them realizing they would have to carry out what they had promised one another.

The Borg were on the horizon. Already they had taken part of their city, it would only be a matter of hours before they reached them, perhaps even less time. As Soran looked into Janan's eyes, he saw it happen, he saw her give up hope and replace it with grim determination. She would not allow her children to suffer.

The planet's atmosphere had already started its conversion to the Borg equivalent of a livable one. The skies took on a dirty green hue, a sky of bile instead of a sky of blue. As an electrical storm had shot streaks of sickly yellow light through the clouds the night before, Janan had whispered to him when he parted the curtain to look at the illuminated sky.

_"Tolian, if the Borg come to the house, I want you to kill me."_

_He'd dropped the curtain from his fingertips, closing their view of the night outside. "I can't do that. You can't ask me to do that."_

_"I will not be assimilated." She crossed her arms, the warmth now entirely gone from her honey colored eyes. "And I will not allow our children to be assimilated."_

_"I can't do that. I can't do what you're asking of me."_

_"We will do it for each other."_

_His face frozen at the surreal turn his life had taken, his eyes went down to look at the children asleep on the bed that stood between them. _

_She noticed the shift in his attention. "Allowing them to be assimilated is relegating them to a fate far worse than death. Becoming a Borg is something you would never wish on anyone. You have already said you would rather die than become one. I would not deny you that wish. Would you deny me mine?"_

_"No." His answer was automatic. He could deny Janan nothing, not even death._

And now his wife nodded at him. His fingers brushed against the hypo he had in his pocket. Outside, all the sounds of wildlife had gone silent, replaced by the heavy footsteps of approaching Borg. He had miscalculated. They were out of time. Together, they went to each of their children, hugged them, kissed their foreheads, and said that they would go to sleep now, the medicine would help them. Frightened enough from the days preceding, they didn't question it. They trusted the parents who had raised them.

Hani they left for last, she had gone to the window when they had spoken to her brothers. Janan was holding their youngest son when Soran approached their daughter. Feeling his presence behind her, she turned and looked at him. Wanting to see her soul for one last time, he knelt to her level.

She placed her hands on his cheeks. "Papa, why are you crying?"

Outside, the footsteps were on the stairway, the droning of their machine limbs carrying through the walls and into his home.

From behind him, his wife said, "Tolian. Quickly."

Already, Janan had hugged and kissed her daughter good bye. Soran drew their daughter into his arms and kissed the top of her head, administering the hypo as he did. He held her until the rise and fall of her little chest stopped and the light that had been the life inside her went out. Almost reverently, he placed her next to her brothers, then turned to Janan, ready to fulfill the last steps of their promise to one another.

His wife smiled at him weakly, a hypo falling from her fingers. "I couldn't make you do it," she said, already swaying towards the ground. "Use your last dose on yourself. I love you."

He caught her as she toppled, then placed her with their children. The tears Hani had witnessed had yet to stop.

They were at the door now. Soran pulled the last hypo from his pocket, had it at his neck when the door burst inwards, and three other El Aurians tumbled inside. The blast knocked Soran to the floor, the hypo skittering away underneath a chair, just beyond his reach.

"Come on!" one man shouted. "We've got a ship ready and we found a hole in their net, we're leaving."

"I'm staying," said Soran, crawling towards where he'd last seen the hypo.

The two other men ran over and hauled him to his feet. "I'm sorry that your family is already dead, but the Borg are exterminating us as a race. We can't afford for any of us to die. You're coming with us," said the leader.

"No!" Finally, Soran began to fight, realizing that the others were speaking the truth, that they would force him to live after his family had died. They would make him break his promise. "You have to let me die!"

The leader shook his head. "No. We have to let you live."

And for the first time in his two hundred and thirty-three years, Tolian Soran knew hate.

2371

The Ten-Forward doors opened and admitted Picard, the man Soran had sought. Except just behind him walked the man's son, the boy who was supposed to be dead. The bitter rage returned, flaring up within the El Aurian, now directed at Jean-Luc Picard. After all, Picard still had his son, still had his younger daughter, while Soran had lost all of his children. Drawing on his nearly one hundred years of frigid control, Soran channeled the rage into accomplishing his goal. He would get back to the Nexus. He would get back to the Nexus and see his family and this Picard wasn't going to stop him. While he plans may have gone a bit awry, he had every chance to save them still at his fingertips.

And accomplishing his goal would nicely dovetail in continuing his campaign of psychological torture with this Starfleet captain, the man who had survived assimilation by the Borg. Conveniently for him, it was this man's breakdown that he needed, and the inept Klingons he had contracted for this part of the job had fallen short in completing their task. That boy was not have supposed to live. He had been consigned to die and join his twin in whatever afterlife they would have as humans.

Of course, it was all a byproduct of the things he really needed. Though the trilithium probe he had set to launch into the Amargosa star had been ready to go for quite some time, he had needed the minute affect a Galaxy-class starship would have on the system's gravity in order to shift the path of the Nexus the correct amount towards Veridian III. And now he had it, since he had triggered the series of events that led to the _Enterprise_ entering this system.

Compared to spending practically an entire century devising, designing, and manipulating events in order to bring the Nexus to him, creating and linking together the chain to bring the ship to this system had been relatively easy. Once Soran had discovered the crew rotation and the origination port for the transport vessel, he'd been able to bring the rest of the events onto his table of dominos. The _Enterprise_ would have been close, but not close enough. Yet if one of the captain's children were on the observatory, the ship would detour to the Amargosa system. At the same time, Soran knew he couldn't have a Starfleet captain with all of his reason intact wandering about the system while he sought to destroy first one star and then another.

Soran knew of one thing that could blind any man to anything outside of a fragile, shattered mind—the loss of a child Losing more than one, that would make a man think he'd be better off dead. Soran knew this blindness, he'd been stumbling about with it for almost a century. Now he could share it with someone else.

Using a contact he had on Earth, he had arranged for the fire on the vineyard. He'd done his research and knew the type of people those twins were. When they went back to the vineyard and found the winery in flames, they would run into it without question in order to save whomever they could. And they had done exactly that. His operative had remained in the burning winery after he'd stunned the Picard brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. His orders had been simple—whichever twin he encountered first, he was to render unconscious so that only one twin would escape. That fireproof shifting-camouflage suit had taken a great deal of bargaining to get ahold of, but the payoff had been worth the effort. The dominos started cascading as they should have. The boy escaped, the sister died. The survival of the sister-in-law was meaningless to him. As Soran had arranged to happen, there would be only one transport to get him to his father's ship in a reasonable amount of time, and with no other choice at hand, the boy was placed on the transport to the Amargosa station, the easiest and fastest way for him to re-join the _Enterprise_, and the remains of his family.

And then the Duras sisters, when they attacked the observatory, were supposed to have killed the remaining twin. But those stupid Klingons had royally screwed up, and here the boy stood, very much alive.

But Soran wasn't too sure about that, when he looked in the boy's eyes, when he saw the boy's soul. There was a piece missing, the fabric that had been torn left a gaping hole obvious to anyone who chose to look. _You're only meant to be around for so long, young man, _Soran thought. _And you've outstayed your welcome_.

He also saw the uneasiness between the father and son who approached him, the looks exchanged between them, with the boy finally shrugging and heading away from his father, towards where his sister sat with the counselor. Soran preferred it that way, the boy was much too insightful, not nearly as blind as he should be with his twin having died only days before. As it stood, Andrew had become the greatest threat to ending all of the work he'd put into bringing the Nexus to him. To finding his family again.

Soran stood as the captain drew near.

"Dr. Soran?" Picard asked. "You requested to see me?"

"Yes, Captain. Thank you for coming." Pleasantries exchanged, the two men seated themselves at the table Soran had occupied as he'd waited for Picard.

"I understand there's something urgent you need to discuss with me," the captain said, almost rushed, as if he had somewhere more urgent to be himself. But Soran knew where that was and the man wouldn't be able to get there for quite some time. Oh, Picard would certainly like the Nexus.

"Yes. I need to return to the observatory immediately. I must continue a critical experiment I was running on the Amargosa star."

"Doctor..." Picard's tone and body language made it entirely obvious that he viewed Soran's requests as an interruption of far more important thoughts and activities. The man had no comprehension of what he posed to interrupt by his reticence over allowing Soran back aboard the observatory. "We're still conducting an investigation into the attack."

_You won't find anything._ Soran held back the replies he wanted to give. That skill, he'd been practicing for a long time. Rarely, now, did he ever say what he truly felt like saying. He couldn't. Vocalizing his true thoughts would end any hope he had of seeing his family again.

Unaware of Soran's true answers, Picard continued. "Once we've completed our work, we'll be happy to allow you and your fellow scientists back aboard the observatory. Until then—"

Soran began to ratchet up the tension he conveyed, playing the part of the disgruntled scientist. "The timing is very important on my experiment—if it is not completed within the next twelve hours, years of research will be lost." _Almost a hundred years, each second a lifetime unto its own, Picard. And you had better not get in my way._

_"_We're doing the best we can. Now if you'll excuse me—" he rose to leave and Soran reached out and grabbed him by the arm. The man would not be getting away from him. The action stopped Picard in his tracks, too stunned at Soran touching him to react in any other way.

Then Soran saw it, the distraction he sought, playing in the corners of Picard's gray eyes. The captain wasn't very far from breaking down. In fact, he was much closer to the possibility than Soran had originally thought. Without a doubt, he knew that if the Klingons had killed the boy as they'd been charged to do, the captain that Soran held by the arm would not be able to see anything in front of him. Instead, he would only hear the voices of his dead children, he would only see the hope he had lost with them. Soran pitched his voice into the lull that was time, into the low-crawling predator that stalked them all. "They say time is the fire in which we burn...and right now, Captain, my time is running out."

The El Aurian paused, allowing his words time to sear Picard with their chill, a burn as painful as one caused by fire. He continued, "We leave so many things unfinished in our lives...I'm sure you can understand."

The distraction cast a shadow over the captain's eyes, allowing them to only see what he had lost in the fire. Picard's answer drifted out on a weak voice, vastly different from the strong baritone of before, now rendered as pitiful and empty as the eyes that had gone vacant on his face. "I'll see what I can do..." though it seemed he wanted to say more, no other words made their way out. The man was done thinking rationally, and probably would be unable to for hours yet.

Picard turned and headed straight back out of the lounge, not even glancing towards the table where his living children sat.

Soran watched him go. He wanted to shout after him, ask him if he heard it to, that little girl's voice that had belonged to his daughter, calling out to him.

"_Papa, why are you crying?"_

It had been the last time Tolian Soran had cried.

Watching the now entirely distracted captain leave, relief moved through the El Aurian, as he had re-asserted his full control over the situation. Nothing would jeopardize his work. Soran pulled his watch again from his pocket, opened the face, studied the hands, witnessing the seconds tick by, counting down to when he would see them again. When he would hear him ask him why he was smiling, his tears wiped away forever.

He would have it.

Soran snapped the watch closed and tucked it away into his pocket yet again. He started to walk out of Ten-Forward, but felt himself drawn to the two children at the table near the long windows of the lounge. He deviated from his path and strode over, getting the boy's attention easily. "I felt that I must apologize for my lack of hospitality aboard my observatory," Soran said, lacing his voice with levity that didn't belong there considering the serious matters at hand. "The surprise attack made the station 'inhospitable,' so to say. I do hope that I might at some point make it up to you."

Andrew looked up at Soran, an eyebrow beginning to lift. "It's not as if you planned the attack to inconvenience me, Doctor," he said. "I don't see why you would need to apologize for it."

_Oh, but I did arrange it, and somehow you weaseled your way out of it, boy._ "Nevertheless, it is my observatory, and therefore my responsibility to properly welcome visitors."

"Well, then...apology accepted," Andrew said, his tone conveying how unsure he was of the offered apology in the first place, but wanting the moment to be over more than pursuing the scientist about his validity.

Soran inclined his head towards the little girl sitting next to the boy. "And this would be your sister?"

Andrew frowned. "And how would you know that?"

Soran caught the incredulous look Troi gave the boy at the hostility barely held in check with Andrew's question. The scientist kept his own tone simple. "You look related, that's all. Same hair, same eyes. It's very much obvious that you are related."

The boy had manners enough to look embarassed at his hostility that he now believed wasn't warranted. Of course, the boy had no way of knowing that the hostility had been entirely warranted. "Yes, she's my younger sister. Her name is Gracie." He turned to the little girl. "Gracie, this is Dr. Soran. He's the scientist in charge of the observatory outside."

Her gray eyes flitted towards the windows, then back at Soran. "Did they wreck your experiments?" she asked, innocence still very much a part of her voice, even if now slightly tainted by the infiltration of the harsh reality that was life.

"No, not yet," replied Soran. "Not as long as your father finishes the investigation soon enough to allow myself and my team to return."

"Oh," she said. "Well, it shouldn't be long. Papa's good at that sort of thing."

_So Picard's daughter calls him Papa. I think Picard and I are more kindred than I had thought. _

Soran quickly rid himself of that realization when he observed Troi giving him a quizzical look. _You go ahead and keep trying to sense my emotions, little empath_, Soran thought. Empaths and telepaths of the Betazoid variety traditionally had some difficulty sensing anything from El Aurians that they didn't want them to know. Once an El Aurian gained enough discipline, they could control what they projected. Soran had that absolute discipline and it had only failed him on the observatory due to his injuries. But the control was back now.

Gracie's eyes had gone towards the window again, then slowly re-focused on Soran, deepening to an intent study of the man's face. "Where did you get that scar?" she asked him. When he didn't answer right away, she kept up. "That one on your forehead, right above your nose. Most people get their scars healed up so they don't show anymore. My mother is a doctor, she could fix that if you wanted."

_That's the scar where my so-called saviors had to hit me to get me out of my house and drag me to that god-forsaken ship that took me away. I will always bear this scar. _"Thank you for the offer," he said aloud. "But I'm quite all right with it now. I've had it for a long time." He decided to make his getaway before the inquisitive child could continue questioning him. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some things to take care of before I return to my observatory." He nodded at the three people seated at the table and set himself back on course towards the doors.

A familiar presence touched his mind and he immediately turned towards its source. When he saw who it was, shock swept through him. It seemed that time was still very much after him as well. The woman at the bar, she was one of them, one of those people who had insisted on keeping him alive, one of the ones who had done nothing as he was ripped away from his family, again and again.

2293

They had traveled in the cramped confines of the ship for nearly six months before they came across another space-faring civilization. El-Auria had been aware of the Federation for quite some time, but had never expected to need their help. Of course, El-Auria had ceased to exist while the Federation had continued on.

Tolian Soran didn't really care.

The men who had commandeered the refugee ship had assigned one of the other survivors to watch over Soran and make sure he didn't commit suicide. Soran, on his part, held no belief that it would be suicide in any way if he killed himself. No, he'd be going on with that after-life he had promised his wife. He would be joining them and in no way would he consider that death.

How he existed now without them, knowing that with each breath he took that he continued to break his promise, _that_ was death. The woman who stayed at his side, listening whenever he chose to speak, keeping watch to make sure he stayed biologically alive, she was his Virgil. Her name was Guinan, but once he had read that piece of human literature, she had become Virgil to him, leading him onward through the depths of hell. She was there as the universe showed him exactly how deep its idea of hell could go.

Slowly, they had boarded the new transport ship, entirely abandoning the last construct of their devastated planet. The Federation representatives informed them that they would be brought to Earth, the Terran homeworld, and then allowed to go wherever they wished from there. They would also be given whatever help they would need to get them there.

"I wish to be with my family," Soran said. "Can you help me with that?"

The Federation representative blinked. "Possibly. Are they on another ship from your planet?"

"No. They are dead," replied Soran.

Taken aback, the human shifted uncomfortably, not knowing what to say. But nothing could be said, no one could produce any sort of reply that could satisfy the situation. The man coughed in an effort to cover his unease. "I'm...I'm sorry for your loss," he said. "But I'm afraid I cannot help you in that regard."

Soran already knew that no one could help him any longer. He would have to help himself. Soon enough, they entered the Terran solar system, what the Federation called Sector 001. Soran could see freedom, even as Guinan remained next to him, tethering him to life. The woman was more in-tune to people's thoughts and emotions than most El Aurians, and while it served her well in keeping him alive, it didn't serve him in his wishes at all.

The _Lakul_ lurched sideways as it was hit by something outside. Alarmed, the refugees gathered in the galley all stood up and some of them dashed towards the windows. Whatever had hit the ship already surrounded it, colored bands of gaseous matter, then it reached inward and took them all.

_"Papa, why are you smiling?" Hani turned to look at him, a smile on her own face. _

_"Because you look so lovely," he replied, unable to come up with a better answer, an answer that could fully express what he was feeling in that moment. Here his daughter was about to be married, a bride as beautiful as her mother Janan had been when she had been a bride herself._

_Hani reached out to him with her gentle hands, brushing at his cheeks. "Then what are these tears? So happy that you cry?"_

_"It happens to the best of us," he said._

_"I think you're like every other father, head over heels for his daughter."_

_He couldn't disagree. No father could. _

_"I think you should stop teasing your father," Janan said from behind him, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder. _

_Soran turned to her and they shared a smile between them, the knowing smile of the beginning of another part of their daughter's life. Hani turned away from them to gather a few of her things, and Janan took the opportunity to kiss the side of her husband's neck. A shiver went through him and he'd never felt so content in his life—_

—and then it was gone. He'd been ripped away from them, ripped away from his family, away from the life as if the Borg had never existed. Vaguely, he heard an officer say, "Only minor injuries so far...but it looks like they're all suffering from some kind of neural shock."

Soran was having difficulty getting his eyes to focus on the stark gray walls around him. They were on another ship and the universe again threw him into the cold pool of reality. He blinked and shook his head and then he saw that a journalist stood in front of him. He was certain it was a journalist, because in every civilization they had the same look about them. Information, they wanted information and it was written plainly in their eager eyes. However, the man was more concerned than eager and studied the side of Soran's face. Only then could he could feel the warmth of blood on his cheek, yet he felt no pain from injury.

Nowhere in the chaotic room did he see his family. They'd taken him from them again. The journalist started to walk away and Soran grabbed at the man's clothing, hauling him back to face him. "Why?" he asked, wanting an answer for this turn of events, for why anyone could be so cruel as to take him away from them twice. "Why?"

The Federation journalist, shaking off his initial shock of the El Aurian so roughly grabbing him, put his hands on Soran's shoulders. "It's all right," he said, in that pandering, pitying tone people used with refugees. "You're safe. You're on the _Enterprise_."

No ship, no matter how legendary, could keep anyone safe from the predator of time. Quite obviously, the man didn't understand the gravity and seriousness of the sin he and the others had committed by ripping Soran away from joy. "No...I have to go," he said, pleading. "I have to get back. You don't understand!" Then he saw Guinan out of the corner of his eye. Soon she would also become completely aware of her surroundings and the task she'd been given. He had to escape. So he let fly a right hook at the journalist to get himself free of his grasp. "Let me go!" he shouted.

Then that officer was back, avoiding Soran's limbs at he struggled, wielding a hypospray of the kind that Soran hated. The hypo placed a cold, clinical kiss on Soran's neck, and he saw darkness.

2371

It was the last time he saw Guinan. The Starfleet officers had divided the survivors of the Nexus ribbon into separate groups once the other ships arrived. Soran managed to evade detection from his keeper long enough to be put on another ship heading away from Sector 001. From that point on, he had stopped planning how to kill himself and instead dedicated the rest of his life in this plane of existence towards bringing the Nexus back to him. Certainly, others would view it as another sort of death, but he saw it as life. A life that could be lived as if the Borg had never happened.

Guinan could put a stop to that just as she'd put as stop to his death wish before. Soran bolted his way out of Ten-Forward, propelled by the panic brought on out of nearly getting caught.

Once outside the doors, he brought his thoughts back to the tasks he had before him now, and decided he had to get aboard the observatory before this ship's captain regained some of his ability to see. Soran easily conned a transporter officer into beaming him over to the station. He made his way through the destruction that Lursa and B'Etor had wrought, pleased that they had at least managed to leave his laboratory, probe, and launching capabilities intact, as they'd been instructed. Planting a Romulan's body on the station had been a nice touch, it had sent the investigators veering off in entirely the wrong direction. Perhaps those two Klingon women were not as entirely hopeless as he had previously thought.

He removed his pocketwatch and checked the time. Nearly time for the launch. Soran frowned when he heard voices coming from the direction of his lab, where his trilithium probe awaited launch towards the Amargosa star. Then strangely, he heard laughter that sounded as if it were coming from the android.

"Data!" the shout was from the ship's chief engineer, LaForge.

And Soran had been right, the laughter had been from the android.

LaForge continued speaking to his shipmate as Soran walked over, careful to remain unnoticed. "Are you all right?"

"I believe my emotion chip has overloaded my positronic relays," replied the android.

Soran shook his head. Without emotions, the android had such an advantage over them all, he could not be brought to his knees by the questions of a little girl, a daughter that could have more power over him than anything else in life. Or death.

"We'd better get you back to the ship," said the engineer. "LaForge to _Enterprise_."

He was met by silence.

Soran decided that it would be a good time to make his presence known. "Is there a problem, gentlemen?" he asked, stepping up on the dais where the probe waited above the loading tube. In the pocket that didn't hold his watch, Soran tightened his fingers on the phaser he'd snatched from a weapons locker.

"Oh," said Geordi, his eyebrows the only clues to what his eyes held. "Doctor. Yes, as a matter of fact there is. There's a dampening field in here that's blocking our comm signal." He turned back to Data. "Will you give me a hand?"

_Of course there's a dampening field. I made it. I'm not an idiot_. Soran took in the scene before him, especially the opened panel, and controlled the disturbed frown that wanted to crawl onto his face. Slowly, he looked back up at the engineer. "I'd be happy to," he said, walking closer. Now tightly holding the phaser, Soran punched the LaForge in the jaw, much as he had done with the journalist all those years ago. The blind man's VISOR went sliding across the small room, well out of anyone's reach, while the man himself tumbled to the floor, unconscious.

Soran whirled around, aiming the phaser at Data.

The android was already cowering in the corner. "Please don't hurt me," he said.

"Then don't move." For a moment, Soran waited to see if Data would dare do so, but the fear was truly immobilizing him. After he picked up the VISOR, the El Aurian went to work on his probe, flipping shut the cover, then pushing the button to send the probe into the launch tube. All of the sudden, he felt chatty. "You know, you really were much better off without emotions," he said, glancing down at the android as he worked.

"I believed my growth as an artificial life form had reached an impasse," Data said, unabashedly answering Soran's question. "For thirty-four years I had endeavored to become more human, to grow beyond my original programming. And yet I was still unable to grasp such a simple concept as humor. The emotion chip was the only answer."

Soran tapped away on the control panel. "Yet people are so much more pliable when they're subject to the reign of emotions. Your captain, for example, he became a chess piece to me, a mighty king easily controlled by my hand when I made his emotions blind him, as unable to see as your friend there." He nodded towards where the engineer's body lay on the deck.

"I do not understand," said Data.

"You've not had children," Soran replied. "If you had, then you would understand."

At the hesitancy, and dare he think it, pain in the android's voice, Soran couldn't help but look toward him. "I...I once had a daughter," Data said. "I created her."

"What happened to her?" There wasn't time for an explanation of the technical aspects of one android building another, but there was time for this conversation to continue in its current vein.

"She began to experience emotion and it caused a cascade failure in her positronic net. And she...ceased to function. She died."

"And how did you feel?" Soran had only a minute to go until his launch. The longer he kept the android occupied, the longer he wouldn't get any stupid ideas of trying to stop him.

"When it happened, I felt nothing. I had no emotions. Yet now I feel...hurt. A sense of loss. I can almost see her, hear her...to the point of not seeing or hearing anything else." Data looked up at Soran. "I believe I am beginning to see your point."

"Are you, now?" asked Soran. Thirty seconds to launch.

"You caused the death of Natalie Picard." The accusation was stark, standing in the room with great pride at being known.

"Did I?"

"In order to blind Captain Picard, as you said you did. And you referred to children, so you must have caused her death in order to control him."

Soran keyed in the launch sequence. The observatory gave a slight shudder as the probe left the tube, heading for the Amargosa star. "I am rather fond of fire," he said. "And fire is rather fond of me, as time continues to caress me with her flames. I have spent longer trying to get back to my child and my family, Data, than you have spent trying to become human. My advice to you is to take out that chip and continue to live free of the damning yoke of emotions."

A blinding burst of light flashed in the observatory's windows. Soran looked at the display, the star's quantum implosion had begun, all the nuclear fusion breaking down to a halt. Racing out from the now dark star was a shock wave, one that Soran welcomed, because as he watched it, he was that much closer to where he wanted to be. Warmth touched him briefly, the warmth he'd known in the Nexus.

At the sound of a transporter beam, Soran whipped around, phaser drawn. As the ship's first officer asked, "What the hell's he doing?" Soran squeezed off a few shots towards Riker and Worf. The two officers dove for cover just outside Soran's lab.

Picard's voice sounded over Riker's communicator. "_Enterprise_ to Commander Riker. You have two minutes left."

Riker appealed to the El Aurian's sense of survival. "Soran, did you hear that? There's a level twelve shock wave coming. We've got to get out of here!"

Soran's answer was another phaser blast. He had an escape route of his own setup already and it had nothing to do with this Starfleet officer. The firefight continued, the scientist laying down a covering fire to keep the officers on the deck and unable to stand unless they wanted to be caught by a phaser beam.

"Data!" shouted Riker. "See if you can get to Geordi!" He'd abandoned his noble idea of saving Soran, a stranger, in favor of attempting to save his friend the engineer.

Soran grinned wickedly at Data's terrified expression. "I...cannot, sir. I believe I am...afraid."

"Your slavery has only just begun," Soran told him. Then the communicator in his pocket beeped, signaling the arrival of his arranged ride in the form of a Bird of Prey belonging to Lursa and B'Etor. Realizing he had an opportunity for additional emotional leverage against the _Enterprise_ and her captain, Soran reached out and grabbed the engineer's collar before the transporter beam dematerialized the both of them.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The transporter beam sounded in sickbay's main room right as Riker notified the doctor that Data would be arriving. Beverly Picard had already been rushing from her office at the first sound of the transport, an instinct honed by years serving as a Starfleet physician. Data had already materialized and stood in the room, looking incredibly lost. If Beverly hadn't known better, she would have thought the android to be a lost little boy.

"Data, what's going on?" she asked.

"Doctor, something is wrong with my emotion chip. I cannot...control any of the emotions."

Resisting making a comment about no one having the ability to control their emotions, the doctor motioned her friend over to a seat next to the cybernetics panel they had installed especially for Data. She popped open the access panel on Data's head and frowned when she saw the circuitry of the neural net. She was capable of evaluating Data's status, but fixing it required the knowledge of the chief engineer, or her eldest son, but Wesley was entirely unavailable as he was on Caldos. "Where's Geordi?" she asked.

"He was..." Data trailed off, the words difficult for him to say aloud.

"Data?" She stopped mid-reach for a tricorder and peered at him closely. "What happened?"

"Geordi was taken captive by Dr. Soran. He beamed away in what appeared to be a transporter beam of Klingon origin."

"Klingon?" The last report she'd read had stated that Romulans were responsible for the attack on the observatory. Though, Soran could have been making deals with Klingons and not involved in the Romulan attack at all. Unless it was a setup. She continued to frown, bypassing the tricorder and picking up a more specific type of scanner.

Sickbay's doors opened to admit the captain and the first officer as Beverly had asked about the Klingons.

"Yes, Klingons," Riker said, answering for Data. "A Klingon Bird of Prey uncloaked outside the ship and Dr. Soran transported over with Geordi."

"Were they responsible for the attack on the observatory and not the Romulans?" Beverly asked, keeping her eyes trained on her scanner.

Will nodded. "Further analysis of the residue left from the disruptors has revealed that they were of Klingon, and not Romulan, origin. The Romulan's body must have been a plant to throw us off track."

"Which it certainly did," said Picard.

Riker turned to the captain. "I've spoken to the Klingon High Council, sir. They identified the Bird of Prey as belonging to the Duras sisters."

Picard's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Lursa and B'Etor? This doesn't make any sense." His brow then furrowed, signaling a shift into solving the curious and seemingly inexplicable situation at hand. When he spoke, it was him repeating his thoughts aloud, not asking for any specific answer from those present. "A renowned stellar physicist somehow uses a trilithium probe to destroy a star, kidnaps Geordi, and escapes with a pair of Klingon renegades. Why? What could make him do this?"

They looked at him with identical blank expressions—no one knew or could even fathom why. Changing the subject somewhat, Will looked back at Beverly and Data. "How is he?" he asked

Her frown hadn't left her face and she closed up Data's head, more than a little frustration apparent in her actions. "It looks like a power surge fused the emotional chip into his neural net," she said, dropping the scanner on the counter with a satisfying clatter.

The captain's look turned to concern and to Data. "Will that be a danger to him?" he asked the doctor, but still looking at the second officer.

Beverly maintained her cool professional composure as she addressed her husband as the captain and nothing else. "I don't think so. The chip still seems to be working. I'd feel better if I could take a closer look, but I can't remove it without completely dismantling his cerebral conduit, and that's something I would rather have Geordi do, or at least have an engineer's input if I do it."

Will gave Data a slight grin. "Looks like you're stuck with emotions for a while. How do you feel?"

Data cocked his head to the side "I am quite..." he trailed off as he searched for the right description of his emotion. "...preoccupied with concern about Geordi."

Riker glanced away for a moment, Data's words a confirmation of his own feelings. "We all are, Data. We're going to get him back."

Data didn't reply, shifting uncomfortably, actions the others in the room were familiar with in themselves, but had never before attributed to Data. Finally, he spoke again. "Also...I believe I am overwhelmed with feelings of," he paused again, having continued difficulty with describing his emotions. "Remorse and regret concerning my actions on the observatory."

Will frowned. "What do you mean?"

Data looked from Riker to the doctor, to the captain, and back. "I wanted to save Geordi. I tried. But...I experienced something I did not expect."

"What did you feel, Data?" Beverly asked.

He turned to her. "I believe it was fear."

The doctor wasn't sure of what to say. She realized Data was exactly right, that fear had stopped him on that observatory. But there were so many different types of fear, and she was being stalked by one type as they all spoke, by the one that threatened her children's well being, and another fear of losing Jean-Luc. If she did, she knew it would be her own fault, she was driving him away incredibly well so far. Yet as much as she feared losing him, she couldn't make herself stop.

Will reached out and placed a large hand on Data's shoulder. "Fear is a very difficult emotion to overcome. It's something we all have to learn to deal with. And we've all had much more time than you have." Neither the captain nor the doctor missed the significant looks Riker cast at both of them before he continued. "And some of us, no matter how long we've had dealing with our emotions, ever really learn to deal with fear in a productive way."

Data frowned in the vague direction of the wall opposite of him. "But I did not deal with it. I let it prevent me from helping my friend." He turned back to Will. "Does that make me a coward?"

"No," Riker answered immediately. "Sometimes, being a coward is refusing to admit you've got any fear at all, even if you've seen evidence of it. And I think you're beginning to experience another emotion—guilt. And you have to try and avoid that feeling. Guilt, more so than any other emotion in my opinion, is what can cripple you. It consumes you, takes over who you are, keeps you from moving on." Again, Will's look moved from Data and back to the captain, then the doctor.

Beverly refused to make eye contact, picking up a padd instead, entering a search for more information about Tolian Soran, ignoring the gaze she knew that Jean-Luc had fixed on her. Reading over the information that appeared on her padd, she was almost able to entirely brush off her husband's meaningful study of her, then Data's response to Will caught her off guard.

"Guilt," he said. "It is a most unpleasant feeling."

Her head snapped up and she decided to bring an end to the conversation. She didn't want to hear anything more about guilt and its brother fear. So she hit the transmit tab on her padd and sent the information to the nearest display, for what she found would make them all forget what they'd been talking about. "Gentlemen," she said, walking over to the wall display. "I've checked into Dr. Soran's background." As she triggered on the panel, the men gathered more closely to see the contents of the display. She started speaking again when Soran's photograph came up. "He's an El Aurian...over three hundred years old. He lost his entire family when the Borg destroyed his world." She barely caught herself from tripping over the words, referring to a person losing his family, it was too fresh on her own mind to allow any listening time on her own ears. But did a person every get over it? Was it even possible for that wound not to be fresh? Or had Soran heard his wife and children calling to him, day and night, for the past century?

Suppressing a shiver, Beverly continued. "Soran escaped with a handful of other refugees and six months after the attack the refugees were finally picked up by the Federation rescue transport _Lakul_. The _Lakul_ was then destroyed by some kind of energy ribbon, but Soran and forty-six others were rescued by the _Enterprise_-B." The doctor allowed the others a moment to absorb the information, then tapped the panel to switch the displayed photograph. "I also checked the passenger manifest of the _Lakul, _and this is who else I found aboard."

The photograph on the display was now one of Guinan.

The captain raised an eyebrow. "I believe it's time we spoke to our hostess." Then he turned to Will. "Number One, I want you to—"

"Captain." It was Data who interrupted.

"Yes, Commander?" Picard asked, looking at Data.

As Beverly watched her friend, she could have sworn she saw him squirm.

"On the observatory, Dr. Soran revealed some information to me that I am...reluctant to share, but at the same time, I know that I am obligated to do so." He took a breath, an action unnecessary for an android, but very necessary for anyone attempting to deal with hefty emotions, then continued. "Soran revealed to me that he was in part responsible for the fire." Data didn't have to indicate which fire he was speaking about—for all of them, there was only one fire on their minds.

Picard managed to answer first. "Data, are you certain you heard him correctly? I realize that Dr. Soran did_ know_ about the fire, but—"

Beverly looked directly at the captain and interrupted him. "Soran knew about the fire?"

Instead of letting the captain answer the question, Data said, "Not only did Dr. Soran know about the fire, he was responsible for it."

"Surely you must be mistaken," Beverly said, dropping her gaze from the captain and to Data. "One, it doesn't seem possible that he could have started that fire, he's been on the observatory for months. Two, what could possibly motivate him to do such a thing?" She went back to the counter and picked up the scanner again. "Are you certain that the emotion chip fusing to your neural net at the time wouldn't have interfered with the auditory pathways?"

Data looked at her and then down at the scanner in her hand. "You are implying that I misheard."

She crossed her arms. "I'm only raising the possibility that you may have, Data. You did take some damage to your neural net."

"There is a slight possibility of damage to my auditory systems. However, that information can be easily verified by playback of my auditory recording through the ship's computer." Data stood, walked back over to the cybernetics panel, opened the access panel on his arm, and plugged into the system. He then tapped on the control panel of the ship's computer in a blurring speed. "I am now ready for playback," he said, looking at the others.

The captain gave him a slight nod, indicating for the android to proceed.

Data hit once more on the panel and the playback began. Soran's gravel-like voice sounded in sickbay's main room, drawing the attention of each person present, including the medical personnel who had previously kept to the background. All movement halted, unable to do anything except listen.

_"Yet people are so much more pliable when they're subject to the reign of emotions. Your captain, for example, he became a chess piece to me, a mighty king easily controlled by my hand when I made his emotions blind him, as unable to see as your friend there."_

The recording was painfully clear, both in its sound and in confirming that Data's supposition was already correct. Beverly couldn't help the glance she gave the captain, noticing that his gaze had already lost its focus, lost somewhere in the images that the sound of Soran's voice brought. Already, the guilt had overwhelmed him, she saw it, clouding his gray eyes.

Data's reply to Soran came, of his inability to understand exactly at what the scientist was hinting.

And Soran gave his answer, not knowing anything of the android's past. _"You've not had children. If you had, you would understand." _

Beverly closed her eyes and she did not see the captain as he did the same. If Soran had indeed caused the fire, had indeed caused Allie's death, he had done it with the understanding of exactly what he was doing to her parents. Data's voice came back in reply, the pain evident as he spoke of the daughter he'd had for such a brief time, Lal. Data's description of what he'd gone through, especially now, looking back at the experience, for the first time with the ability to experience emotions. _"Yet now I feel...hurt. A sense of loss. I can almost see her, hear her...to the point of not seeing or hearing anything else."_

And the doctor heard her daughter speaking to her then, words of a little girl protecting her twin brother, then the words spoken with a wisdom far beyond her teenage years, then she heard the laugh of a toddler, all of them buffeting her with memories and images of the daughter she had now lost. She bit her lip as tears formed up behind her closed eyelids, threatening to overrun her resolve. Guilt's maw loomed over her, another threat, this one a threat of consuming her whole. Will's words about guilt were true, as guilt could insinuate itself into a person so thoroughly that it would become all that they were. The blame Jean-Luc had thrown in her direction about Allie, didn't he realize that she already blamed herself enough? Not only had she taken those actions that robbed him of experiencing all those moments of Allie's life, but in doing so, she'd also robbed herself of the same. Most of all, she had robbed Allie of having her parents there to witness them.

The playback of the conversation between Data and Soran had gone on as she fought within herself.

_"You caused the death of Natalie Picard."_

_"Did I?"_

_"In order to blind Captain Picard, as you said you did. And you referred to children, so you must have caused her death in order to control him."_

"Why?" the captain's faint question caused Data to pause the playback. "Why would he need to control me?"

At the lack of strength in her husband's eyes, Beverly opened her own to see the expression on his face. And the face that she saw was slack with loss, disbelief, and a complete inability to understand another man's actions.

"I don't understand why," he said.

"Sir, I don't think any of us are capable of ans—"

Picard stopped Will's attempt at an answer by holding up his hand. "The only man capable of answering that question is Tolian Soran," he said, his timbre still uncharacteristically faint. "Mr. Data, continue playback."

Data nodded. "Here is the rest of what Dr. Soran said."

_"I am rather fond of fire. And fire is rather fond of me, as time continues to caress me with her flames."_

Beverly's gaze focused again, straight onto Data. Soran had caused the fire. Soran had killed Allie, and not only Allie, he had also killed Robert and Rene, if only for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and Data's words had confirmed it without any room for questioning.

_"I have spent longer trying to get back to my child and my family, Data, than you have spent trying to become human. My advice to you is to take out that chip and continue to live free of the damning yoke of emotions."_

The was a brief period of silence, followed by the sound of transporter beams, then phaser fire. "That is where Commander Riker and Lieutenant Worf arrived on the observatory," said Data.

Riker nodded his confirmation.

"He's trying to get back to his family," said the captain, pursing his lips in thought, making himself think of only the puzzle before him and not of his own emotions.

Beverly didn't know about him, but she was absolutely reeling from what she'd heard, and it was taking every ounce of control she was able to exert to keep herself from tipping her hand. So she chose to focus her attention on someone else, distracting herself in much the same way the captain had done. As she looked over at Data, she saw panic rush to his face, his yellow eyes widening as a human's would do in the case of the same emotion.

"Guilt also causes blindness," Data said, turning to Riker.

Will looked him from where he'd been staring at the deck under his feet. "What?"

Data stood up, detaching himself from the cybernetics interface. "Captain, you must relieve me of duty until Dr. Picard can remove my emotion chip." He ignored Will's question, only able to think of his own guilt, of his fear and panic.

"Data—" the captain started, an objection to the request automatically forming.

But the second officer interrupted him. "I cannot allow you to risk having me attempt to perform my duties while in such a state, sir," he said.

"What state is that?" asked Picard.

"Cannot guilt be blinding as well? If I am experiencing a great amount of guilt over my actions on the observatory, would I not be blinded by that emotion, and therefore unable to perform my duties?"

The captain shook his head. "If I were to relieve you of duty due to feeling guilty, I would have to relieve most of the crew, myself included. Everyone, at some point in their life, has to deal with feeling guilty for something they have or have not done. You will just have to learn to deal with your troubles and figure out a way to carry on in spite of them. It's part of being human."

"But Captain, I—"

This time, it was Picard who did the interrupting. "Mr. Data, you will _not_ be relieved," he said. "You must carry on like the rest of us."

For a moment, it looked as if Data might continue his objections, then he caught Will's slight shake of the head, indicating for him to drop it for his own good. "Of course, sir," Data said. "I will continue with my duties."

"Good," said Picard. "Now I'd like you to do some investigating into this energy ribbon and upload any information you find to the ship's stellar cartography computers. Dismissed."

Bewilderment replaced Data's panic and with one last uneasy look to the captain, he said, "Aye, sir," and departed.

Beverly saw Will studying her as Data walked out and recognized the determination in her friend's eyes, that he'd decided he would get everything out in the open. To do that, he'd have to say it directly, what he thought he was seeing—that both the ship's captain and the ship's chief medical officer were entirely consumed by guilt in its oft-used disguise of grief. Not only did he see that, but he also saw two of his friends now entirely at odds, pretending not to see the other, and in doing so, doubling the amount of guilt they felt.

She managed to catch him with her eyes and gave a small shake of her head. He raised his eyebrows, surprised that she would head him off, as they did share a bond similar to that of siblings. Then he frowned and his eyes gave her another message, that he'd be speaking to her later, whether she liked it or not. And if she didn't, he'd tattle on her to Deanna. She knew that from only seeing the expression in his eyes, as he'd done that to her often enough. He never bluffed about that.

"Will, take the bridge. I need to go speak with our friend Guinan," said Picard.

Riker nodded, gave Beverly another glance, then left sickbay.

Left standing with Jean-Luc in the main room, Beverly suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. Her staff had made themselves so scarce that she hadn't the first clue as to where they'd gone. The captain made eye contact with her, looked as if he had something to say, then didn't say anything. Instead, he headed for the exit.

"Jean-Luc," Beverly said, walking towards him and the door.

He turned and faced her.

"I'm going with you," she said, preparing for an argument as to why she should accompany him, even if he thought it wasn't ship's business in which she needed to be involved.

A brief thought of disagreement passed on his face, but it left as quickly as it arrived. With a slight nod of his head, he headed out the door again, the nod and his silence on the matter indicating his agreement with her declaration.

She followed, feeling as if she were walking with a stranger. No, there were two strangers, the both of them. Somehow they had become rival factions in some sort of emotional cold war. The ride they shared on the turbolift held the silence of no man's land, as was the walk they took together to Ten-Forward. Guinan noticed them as soon as they entered and gave them a slight nod, then tilted her head towards her office door.

Guinan was already studying them with her brown eyes that held the wisdom of centuries of life lived when they entered her office. "Tolian Soran," she said, gesturing with her hand for them to sit in the spare chairs she had in the room.

The captain sat, but just barely, already on the edge of the chair, leaning forward. "Do you remember him?" he asked, heading right to the matter at hand, not giving Guinan any room to dispense her observations on any other situation. Namely, theirs.

"Oh yes," she said, nodding, eyes half-closing. "I remember everyone who was on the escape ship and then on the _Lakul_. Every face, every name, even the ones who didn't make it. And even the ones who didn't want to make it."

Beverly felt herself mimicking her husband's actions, the intensity of the situation demanding that she not sit in the chair as she normally would, that she should find even the thought of sitting to be entirely uncomfortable and want to be on her feet, doing something, anything. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Soran thought of nothing but rejoining his family. When they found him—the other refugees—his family was already dead and only he was left alive. They forced him to go with them. Once we were all on that ship and through the Borg net, I was given the task of watching Soran so that he didn't commit suicide. It took us six months to come across any other ships, and in those six months I spent listening to his silence, he told me what happened in those few minutes when he chose to speak. He wanted someone to know, so they could understand why he wanted to die, and I was the person he told." Guinan's eyes had grown distant, again seeing the events that had unfolded a century before.

"Why did he want to die?" asked the captain.

Slowly, the El Aurian's eyes returned to the two humans who sat opposite of her. "He had the misfortune, or fortune, depending on how you see it, of living on one of last the continents to be assimilated. They knew what was coming and his wife made him promise that he wouldn't allow that to happen."

Suddenly, Beverly knew. She knew exactly what had happened, what Soran's wife had asked him to do. "She asked him to kill them," she said aloud, a statement, no question at all. She knew because it's exactly she would have done were she in the same situation. Watching the Borg steal everything away from Jean-Luc that made him who he was, to sock it all away inside a tiny trap, unable to escape while they made his body and mind theirs to do what they willed, she knew she could never allow that to happen to another person if she had the ability to stop it.

The captain snapped his head around to look at Beverly, his eyes clearly showing his shock at her even fathoming such a thing.

Then his look was torn away from his wife when Guinan confirmed Beverly's supposition. "All of them."

Picard looked from one woman to the other. "I don't understand," he said.

The doctor almost felt bad for him, that he didn't figure it out as soon as she had. But it was an instinctual thing, as it must have been for Guinan, something only mothers would think of so quickly, in order to save their children from such a mockery of what had been life. Images of Locutus on the viewscreen floated in front of her, accompanied by those cold statements uttered in a voice that had once belonged to Jean-Luc Picard.

_"Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service...us."_

The emotions returned as well, piggybacked on the memories, how those emotions had wrestled with one another—wanting stop Will from firing on the Borg vessel and destroying what little was left of Jean-Luc while at the same time, wanting to fire on that vessel herself in order to keep her children safe. In the end, had it come down to it, her choice would have been the one that would allow for her children's survival. Thankfully, the choice was never hers to make, others made it for her. Images appeared before her again, these ones of what could have been, of Andrew's face drained of color, cybernetic attachments already forming along his limbs...or Gabriel, would they even assimilate him? An infant? Then there was Gracie...and she wondered if they had women Borg, or if the Borg used assimilation as their reproductive technique.

Guinan explained to the captain what he and Beverly already knew, her words shaking Beverly out of her cascading waking nightmare in her imagination. "So that they wouldn't be assimilated," she said.

Beverly saw the understanding driving away the haze of confusion in Jean-Luc's eyes, and he nearly squinted at the brightness of it—a realization that no person wanted to make.

Guinan went on. "So that they would die instead of continuing to live in a version of hell worse than anything eternal that anyone could think of. Soran and his wife, they had each promised to administer the drug to the other. Then when Soran's back was turned while he had given the drug to their daughter, his wife administered it to herself. When he turned back around, she was seconds away from dying. The refugees found him before he could finish and join them in death." The El Aurian paused and focused solely on the captain. "It's why he hates you, Picard. You lived through assimilation. You didn't lose your family to the Borg."

"We think Soran's developed a weapon," said Picard, driving the conversation forward so he wouldn't have to confront his own emotions again, the personal ones. "A terrible weapon. It might give him enough power to—"

"Soran doesn't care about power or weapons. All he cares about is getting back to the Nexus," Guinan said, throwing the captain off the course he thought he should be on and directing him towards the correct one.

"The Nexus?" he asked.

"It's a place I've tried very hard to forget. That ribbon isn't just some random energy phenomenon traveling through space. It's a doorway. It leads to another place, it leads to the Nexus. It doesn't exist in our universe, and it doesn't play by the same rules either."

Beverly could see both the longing and the loathing for the Nexus fighting for the same place in Guinan's eyes. "What happened to you?" she asked.

Guinan's attention turned toward the doctor. "I can't remember very much. Not what it looked like or how long I was there, but I do remember how it felt," she paused, trying to come up with the right description, much as Data had earlier. Except Guinan had lived with emotions for hundreds of years, and yet, this place defied description for her as fear had defied description for the newly emotional android. "It was like being inside...joy. As if joy was a real thing that I could wrap around myself. I've never been so content..." she trailed off, almost as if she were being carried away by just the memory alone.

"And then you were beamed away," said the captain.

Instantly, Guinan was back to reality and now looking straight at Picard. "I was _pulled_ away," she said, correcting him. "I didn't want to leave. None of us did. I felt like I'd left a part of myself behind. All I could think about was getting back. I didn't care what I had to do. It took a long time, but eventually, I learned to live with it."

"What about Soran?" Beverly asked the question, but she already knew the answer. Soran wanted back in, he wanted back into the Nexus, and he'd stop at nothing to get there, just as death wouldn't have stopped him in getting to his family before.

"Soran is obsessed with getting back and he'll do anything to find that doorway again," Guinan said, confirming what Beverly had already concluded. "He has to be, because he isn't dead yet. He found something else he wanted to do rather than kill himself to be with his family."

The captain rose from his chair. "But why destroy a star?" he asked, the question mostly rhetorical, only said aloud in the slight chance that someone present may have an answer.

Guinan stood as well and answered him at the same time. "You can't go to the Nexus," she said. "It has to come to you."

An idea, the slight beginnings of a solution to the puzzle of what Soran was up to, became apparent in the captain's eyes. "Thank you," he said to Guinan, then headed for the door.

Guinan stopped him with a forceful command. "Let someone else do it, Picard."

He halted and turned to face her.

She continued. "Let them send another starship. Don't get near the ribbon. If you go into that Nexus, you're not going to care about Soran or the _Enterprise_, or Beverly or your children, or me. All you're going to care about is how it feels to be there." She paused again, giving them all enough time to absorb the impact of her words. "And you're never going to come back."

Weighing her words, yet saying nothing in reply, the captain slowly backed out of Guinan's office and exited. Beverly looked after him, wondering why he would bother coming back if there would be nothing to come back to.

"You think that if you had never said anything about your children, that things would be different, don't you?" Guinan asked her, before she had a chance to decide to walk out the door.

Beverly faced her. "Yes," she replied, feeling like she'd had this conversation before. Except last time, she'd been the one asking the questions.

"It would have been different, but you wouldn't have liked it that way, either. It's a funny thing, how the universe works. Things are meant to happen, people are meant to be here and not be here at certain times. There isn't much we can do to change it. To change the future."

The doctor frowned. "It's already been changed."

"Yes, it has," said Guinan. "And none of you like that future, either. So now things are different...and my question is, do you like it any better?"

Beverly didn't have to answer aloud. They both already knew what her answer would be.

_No, I don't._


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Andrew sat quietly in one of the armchairs in the main area of his family's quarters, unsure of what to do. He didn't particularly have anything he _had_ to do. He felt antsy and wanted to get up and pace, to do something, but the silence in their quarters was so oppressive that he felt trapped by it. Both his mother and his sister were there with him and his brother asleep in the nursery. But it would have been less quiet if they weren't there. His mother had just become so different that he didn't know how to act around her, what to say or do. He knew his father felt the same way, if only because the captain had found more and more excuses to stay out of their quarters and buried underneath the protective shield of his work. Andrew shifted in the chair, trying to make himself comfortable when he felt something underneath the cushion. Holding in comments about Gracie managing to leave her things everywhere possible, he pulled out the padd that had worked its way beneath the cushion.

Ready to complain to Gracie by way of returning her padd, Andrew glanced at it to see what she'd been working on, if it would reveal anything about the way she was feeling.

_Although originally bred as a draft horse, the breed is graceful and nimble for its size and later developed into a finer-boned nobleman's steed. During the Middle Ages, Friesian horses were in great demand as destriers throughout Europe since their size enabled them to carry a knight in full armor..._

The padd wasn't Gracie's, it was Allie's. She must have lost it before they'd left for the vineyard and now she wouldn't need it at all. The padd dropped from his hand, clattering against the coffee table before thumping onto the floor. The sound caused his mother to look up in irritation from her work on the terminal, and her irritation only grew more evident when the sound revealed that it'd woken up Gabriel.

Andrew swore under his breath.

Beverly raised an eyebrow.

"I'll get him," he said.

"Please," she replied, not bothering to add that he should because it was his fault his brother had woken up in the first place.

Andrew was grateful for the escape. As soon as he'd placed his hands around his brother's body to pick him up, the crying ceased. Andrew scowled at Gabriel and his brother merely quietly studied him in reply. Walking over to the tall window in the room, he admonished his little brother in a gentle voice. "I don't see why you get all quiet only when I pick you up. I think you do it just to annoy me. You're not even two months old and you've already started. Did Allie out you up to this? 'By the way, I'm not going to be around, so you have to take my place to annoy the ever-living crap out of Andrew.' Is that what she said?"

He looked at his brother again, at his green eyes, reminding him of Nana. For his part, Gabriel stayed quiet.

"Oh, I see how it is. You won't break. She's not around anymore and you still know that somehow, she could do some damage if you told on her. Though, I know she'd at least wait till you were older. I wish you could have known her, you know." He lightly rested his cheek against his brother's head, amazed at how soft the baby's hair was. They both watched the stars outside. Andrew wondered if already, Gabriel was like him and like Gracie, called by the stars and not by the earth. "You like the stars, too?" he asked. "Allie wasn't like the rest of us, she couldn't care less about the stars. She was much more grounded than the rest of this family." _This family_. Tears threatened as Andrew realized once again how quickly they were falling apart without his twin. She couldn't have been the only thing holding them together.

He found himself continuing to talk, trying to distract himself from his own reactions. "She had this knack, she could almost immediately see the real issue, see whatever we were really feeling, and she'd just throw it right there in the open, whether we were ready to deal with it or not. She was so...level-headed. Maybe it's because she was the only one without red hair of any kind, aside from Papa. I mean, yeah, she had a temper like the rest of us, but still...I don't know. I thought I would be the only one who'd feel lost without her, I've always been a twin, and she's always been there. But now, watching everything happen between us all, I think we're all lost. It's like we've forgotten that we love each other and we're all adrift."

Andrew glanced back at the doorway, making sure no one was listening to him, aside from the brother he held in his arms, who couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. "At first, I was afraid of living without Allie. I still am, but I didn't know that something else could scare me more than that. It's our parents. I'm terrified that they'll tear each other apart and end up separated and then divorced, like in that future that Q had shown our father. They've already started the process. Not any official divorce proceedings or anything, but they're emotionally separated from one another. They don't talk anymore, not even arguing about things like the prime directive in them middle of the night. They'd keep all of us awake, arguing about that. I'd lay in bed wishing they'd shut the hell up, while Allie would just get up, walk out of her bedroom, and tell them exactly that. She was the only one of us who wasn't afraid of emotional confrontation. Without her, we're all just cowering in corners and throwing rocks at each other."

He scowled again. "Even Gracie. She used to be this happy-go-lucky little kid who'd just announce whatever was on her mind. And now she doesn't talk about anything and pretends that she doesn't feel anything. She's acting so much like Mom right now that it hurts and I don't know what to do. Allie and I, we'd always looked out for her, you know? And now it's just me and I don't have the slightest idea how to make her feel better. I'm afraid to even ask, because she'll just snap at me, like Mom would. It's weird, too, because usually it's Papa who closes off and chases everyone away. For once, I don't think he's closed off, not like he used to be. That was Allie's doing, too. But I can't pin him down, he's avoiding us all. Not that I can really blame him. It's like a hornet's nest in here and that's the sort of thing you stay away from. I'd stay away, too, but I don't know what to do with myself." He stopped talking, unsure of what to say anymore. His brother's head had fallen to lay on his shoulder and he knew the infant had fallen asleep at some point in his monologue.

He sighed, knowing he'd have to put his brother back to bed, and that he wasn't going to be talking to anyone else. "I miss her...and we could really use her right now," he said.

"Andrew."

He spun around at the sound of his mother's voice. She stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "How long have you been standing there?" he asked, fear surging through him that she'd heard any of what he'd said.

"You have a message from Earth that's marked priority. I'm done with the terminal for now if you'd like to read it."

He took note that she didn't answer his question and was content to let it go and pretend she hadn't heard a word. "I would," he said. "Just let me put him back down." Carefully, he placed his brother back in the crib and crept out of the room. His mother had already disappeared in her work again, going through a stack of padds spread out on the coffee table. Allie's padd was still on the floor where he'd dropped it. At least no one else had noticed it.

Sitting down, he called up the message, wondering who would be sending him one. He supposed it could be Starfleet, asking him if he was accepting their offer or not. Officially, he still had another week to decide, but he was certain that candidates didn't normally take this long to notify them of their acceptance of an offer.

But he wasn't sure if he was going to accept it. He didn't know anymore.

The message appeared on the display and it wasn't from Starfleet. It was from Cécile. Marie had woken up briefly and given a preliminary statement to the investigator. Marie had said that there had been a man inside the winery, it was why Robert had gone inside in the first place. She'd heard odd sounds from the building and had gone in, Rene following despite her telling him not to. Inside, she'd found Robert unconscious and what she thought could be a man, but she couldn't tell for certain, because it seemed to move with the background, like a chameleon. The man had fired on her and Rene and they were both hit. The next thing she remembered was waking up, the fire and smoke around them all, hearing the others moaning as they woke up the same way as she had.

The rest of Cécile's message consisted of her sympathy and he didn't much feel like reading it right then. Almost viciously, he stabbed at the button to close the message and turn off the display in front of him. There'd been a man there, it had been arson. Soran had known about the fire. But Soran couldn't have been the man there. As for the chameleon thing, Andrew knew they had camouflage suits they used for first contact reconnaissance missions. But Soran...he couldn't figure out how Soran figured into it. Why the hell would he care about his family so much? Why would he instigate that fire?

"Is this what you dropped earlier?" he heard his mother ask.

Andrew looked up and saw the padd Beverly held up with her hand. "Yeah." He didn't need to wonder if she'd read it and recognized it as Allie's, he could see the fresh pain in his mother's blue eyes and knew she had. Allie was right there, waiting to be brought up, but he didn't want to do it. Already, he was doing his best not to squirm even thinking of the prospect. But Allie would have brought it up immediately, put it out there in the open without a second thought, like shouting to them all about the elephant in the middle of the room. And Allie wasn't here to do it for them anymore, someone else would have to. "It was Allie's," he said, willing himself to keep looking straight at his mother.

"I know," she said. "I turned it on. I thought it was yours."

"It's not. It's not anyone's anymore."

Beverly blinked at her son's statement, one that acknowledged aloud that Allie was gone. She changed the subject. "What was that message about?"

Andrew knew that the message wasn't going to change the subject, it would only make the conversation more emotionally loaded that it already was. He plunged into the deep end, repressing the shiver at the cold that enveloped him as soon as he did. "It was from Cécile, about the fire. Marie woke up and gave her statement. At least, she gave a preliminary statement."

Gracie's door opened, the sustained conversation drawing her out of her room. None of them had held any sustained conversations with one another in awhile. "What did Aunt Marie say?" she asked.

Andrew glanced at his mother, then back at his younger sister. He didn't want to discuss the contents of the message with Gracie around. She was too young to be able to deal with it. Hell, he was too young and he didn't think his mother was old enough for it either. He looked at his mother again and gave her a slight shake of his head to tell her he wouldn't be talking about it right then.

"You aren't going to say because I'm right here," said Gracie.

Andrew looked right at her. "Exactly."

He'd meant for the honesty to placate her a little bit, at least enough so she'd know he didn't want to lie to her. But it only served to make her more angry. "I don't want you to hide things from me," she said.

"I'm not really hiding things from you," he said. "I'll tell you when you're older."

"I don't want to be left out!" she shouted at him. "She was my sister, too!"

"You're not old enough," he said, trying to keep an even tone, though he felt his own anger bubbling to the surface.

"I'm old enough not to be left out. I want to know what happened. I deserve to know."

He blinked. "_You_ deserve to know? How about—"

Beverly cut him off. "Andrew, she became old enough to know the day she found out her older sister died in a fire. Just say what was in that message."

He turned to face his mother, his ability to filter his words completely gone, the anger flying outwards at the nearest targets. "I'm not sure if you're old enough to know either. You're acting the same way as Gracie and she's five years old."

The doctor stood up, leaving the padd on the sofa next to her. "Young man, you have no right to make that judgement about any of us, nor do you have any right to hold back whatever Cécile has told you about Marie and what her statement was."

"I have every right," he said. "She—"

"You have no right to keep that information to yourself. She was _my_ daughter," Beverly said, once again cutting him off.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Andrew saw the doors to their quarters open and his father step inside. No one else noticed his presence and Andrew didn't much feel like acknowledging it. "She might have been your daughter, but she was _my_ twin," he replied, the loudness of his voice matching his mother's.

"I'm not going to play the game of whose emotional ties were closer than whose," said the doctor.

"We don't need to," he said, still ignoring the door. "Mine was the closest. None of you have had a twin, none of you know what it's like to feel that lost. There's no debating about it, because the answer is already there."

"And you have no idea what it's like to be a mother," Beverly said, her cold eyes holding him in place as surely as ice picks. "You have no idea what it's like to carry a person around in your body for nine months, to see them born, to watch them grow up, only to lose a part of yoursel—"

"But you didn't see that, did you? Not with me, not with Allie. So I don't see how that argument has any meaning, not that part. You _didn't_ watch us grow up. And now you're upset with yourself that you missed it and now you'll miss everything else that could have been her life."

"You have no idea what I went through when I left—"

"No, but I have every idea of what it was like to grow up without your parents. Your parents didn't choose to leave you, they were killed. _Mine_, they chose to leave me, to leave us. You knew what you were doing when you chose to leave us with Nana, you knew how it would make us feel, and yet you still did it. Allie wasn't a constant in your life, she was a constant in _mine_ and I've lost the closest relationship I've had in my entire life, past, present, and future. You've lost someone who's skipped intermittently through your own life. The longest time she was a part of your life before this past year was when you were pregnant with us. And then, what if Nana hadn't died? Would we still be living on Caldos, having no idea who our real parents were, thinking that they were dead? It was easier, then. We thought they were dead, we thought that they were taken away from us, not that they had chosen to leave us."

When he paused to take a breath, Beverly jumped in. "That wasn't a decision I came to easily and I'm not going discuss it with you again. What needs to be discussed is what Marie had to say about the fire."

Andrew found that he didn't care anymore how much it would hurt any of them to find out more of the truth about the fire. "Fine, you want to hear it? There was a man there, he shot Robert with a phaser when he went inside the winery to investigate. Then Marie went in after when she heard the phaser. Rene followed her, even though she told him not to. So the man shot them both and when Marie woke up, the fire was already blazing, the smoke was already choking, and they were all already screaming. Is that what you wanted to hear? More confirmation that it happened? More confirmation that they all suffered because of some meaningless act—"

"Stop!" Gracie shouted. At some point, she'd picked up the sextant from the shelf behind her and she threw the metal object between her mother and brother as she yelled at them. "Stop fighting!"

The sextant sailed over the sofa and landed on the glass-topped coffee table, shattering the table with a crash, the sextant landing with two soft thuds on the carpet below, in two pieces instead of one, and the shards of glass raining down around it.

Gabriel let loose a cry from his room.

Andrew didn't feel like getting him, he was too worked up to be able to relax himself, much less his younger brother. Perhaps his father would get him. His eyes flicked over towards the doorway and found that the captain had departed at some point during the argument. He looked slowly back at his mother.

"Why did you look at the door?" she asked him.

"No reason," he replied. He might argue and fight with his mother and sister, even his father, but he wasn't going to be the one to hammer in that wedge between them any further then it already was.

"No reason," she repeated.

Gabriel continued to cry. Andrew glanced over at the doorway to his brother's room. "You should get him," he said, looking back at his mother.

"I should," she said, starting to walk in that direction. "After all, I shouldn't choose to miss out on any moments of _his _life, especially seeing how it's affected _you_."

Andrew had nothing to say to that, absolutely nothing. So he walked out the door without another word, leaving the shattered table and broken sextant behind him, the shards tiny representatives of his family's shattered lives, the broken sextant an embodiment of how they'd lost their direction.

After wandering aimlessly around the ship, he found himself in stellar cartography, the room empty due to the time of night, the scientists that usually made use of it having no need of it while near an observatory with information to cull from partially destroyed computer banks. He called up his old program, the one of that had kept track of the _Enterprise_ while he lived on Caldos. Then he stretched out on the deck, looking at the stars and galaxies above him and around him, finally seeing nothing else outside of it. The universe had become his world and somehow, it was so much smaller and fraught with far less danger.

One by one, his senses faded, leaving him only to sit and think, which was what he didn't want to do in the first place. He wanted to distract himself from them, not to think of what had happened and what had changed. Obviously, he'd have to find something else to do. As he started to get to his feet to switch off the program, the doors to the large room opened. "I'm just leaving," he said, tapping at the controls.

"You're were just the person I was looking for," said Guinan.

He turned around, not yet finished terminating the program. "I haven't done anything."

"Well, I heard about your program and I'm curious," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. It was all too convenient for Guinan to find him right at this moment, after he'd had a huge fight with his family and wanted to get away from it. "Now?" he asked.

"Why not?"

Andrew frowned, but he couldn't think of a reason to the contrary. He motioned around the room with his hands. "Well, this is it."

"Tell me about it," she asked.

"Tell you about it," he repeated, dubious.

"If you're going to repeat everything I say, I can just say it twice so we can skip that step."

She'd caught his stalling and he allowed himself a slight smile. "Okay," he said, going back to the control panel and highlighting Mars. "The ship started from there, on the Utopia Planitia Shipyards. Then it went..." he tabbed another control and it sent a red line up on the display around them, tracing the ship's route. "To Farpoint Station." He continued talking, his fingers working the controls without his mind having to tell them what to do. He was telling Guinan about each other place the ship had been—at least the more interesting ones—but he wasn't thinking about those places.

He'd gotten stuck on Farpoint Station. A thought had struck him, another what if, but this one different from the rest, not one of regret because of Allie's death, but one of curiosity. What if his parents had stayed together, even before he and Allie had been born? What if they had gotten married, and instead of just Wes going to Farpoint Station with their mother to meet the _Enterprise_, if it had been all four of them?

They would've been nine at the time, waiting on that station to meet their father's ship. Wes had told him enough of the story, how standoffish Beverly had been with Commander Riker at first. Either because she'd assumed Will had been hitting on her in some way or if not that, then trying to curry favor with the captain by being overzealous in his duties before he even reported aboard ship. Or how the captain had snapped at Wes when he'd been on the bridge, at the reluctance the captain had shown about even letting Wes on the bridge in the first place. Andrew wondered if his father would've been like that if he already were a family man and not a captain focused only on his captaincy. He wished he knew, that things had happened that way, and not the way they turned out.

"Wishes aren't what drive the universe," said Guinan.

Her statement brought him back to reality, his daydream gone. "What?"

"You said 'I wish' so I thought I'd tell you that while you were busy wishing."

He frowned. "What else did I say out loud?"

"Oh, that was it. You were saying something about Rutia Four, then said that you wished, then went on again about that mission."

"Sorry," he said. "My mind wandered off and I was trying to chase it down." He tapped another control and then looked sideways at El Aurian. "You really don't care about the program, do you?"

"Not the program in particular, no. What were you thinking about?"

"Wishes," he said, abandoning the controls. "But those aren't what drive the universe, it's the truth that does. But...I don't much like the truth."

"No," she said. "You don't like reality. There's a difference."

Andrew crossed his arms, studying the red line of the ship's journeys. It would be so easy to just tell Guinan everything right then, lay it at her feet and get her to help him fix it. But he didn't want to talk about the argument, didn't want to admit the awful things he'd said to his mother out of frustration, anger, and hurt. He'd struck out at her like a cornered, hurt puppy and knew he'd hurt her. "The reality is that the fire was arson, and not just arson, but someone stunned each of them with a phaser before the fire even started. They wanted them to die that way. And it all still has no point, it's just as meaningless as it was before. I don't even know who—"

"It was Soran."

He shook his head. "I thought of that, but he was on the observatory at the time, so it couldn't have been him. He just...somehow knew about the fire, like how you just know things. Isn't that an El Aurian trait?" he asked, looking at her, waiting for the answer.

"It's an El Aurian trait, that knowing, it comes from being a race of listeners. However, that's not how Soran knew about the fire. Just because he wasn't the man who stunned your family doesn't mean he wasn't the one who set the plan in motion for that fire to occur. And he had his reasons. One reason, actually."

"And what would that reason be?" He disliked it when Guinan did this, making him fish for the real meaning in her conversations with people.

"I would tell you, but you need something to do, don't you?" she asked.

Surprise flashed through his eyes, practically waving hello to the woman who stood beside him.

She nodded. "I'm sure information has been uploaded to this room's computer banks from Data's work on this matter and I'm sure you can make use of the information to figure out why Soran's doing the things he's doing."

"Why me?" he asked as she turned to walk out the door.

Guinan glanced back at him. "Because," she said. "As I told you before, I know that you need something to do." And she was gone.

He would have followed her, but the opportunity she'd presented him with was too good of one to less pass by without grabbing it and holding on. He needed something to do and she'd given him a puzzle to solve and a purpose in the sense of finding the purpose behind his sister's death. Calling up the new information in the computer, Andrew saw that she'd been correct in assuming Data had found new information. Guinan had known Soran, they had escaped their homeworld as refugees when the Borg attacked. They had been on the same transport ship when it was destroyed by an energy ribbon and they had been rescued by one of the predecessors of the ship he stood on now.

Energy ribbon. One of Data's notes said that Guinan had called that ribbon the Nexus. Andrew realized that it must also be connected to Soran. Leaving the display of the galaxy and the last known position of the ribbon on the display around him, Andrew called up Soran's information on the small terminal display near the controls. "You lost your entire family," Andrew whispered. "How could you take away anyone else's after you went through that?" He read on, noting the annotations made recently by Guinan, about Soran's suicidal tendencies prior to his run-in with the Nexus, and that afterward, those tendencies had disappeared. It still made no sense. Frustrated with this black hole who was Soran, Andrew darkened that display and pulled up the other information Data had sent.

Behind him, the door opened again. Andrew realized Guinan must have returned for some reason, a reason that could only be understood by Guinan. "I hope you've come to help," he said, not bothering to look up.

"I can certainly try, but you'll have to tell me what you're doing first before I can do so," came the strong voice of his father.

Andrew stood up straight and turned. "It's nothing," he said. "If you need the room, I can go." He wasn't sure if he could stand to be in the same room with him, not with not knowing how much the captain had heard earlier.

At first, Picard didn't answer, instead he looked at the galaxy displayed in the room around them, the appearance of them standing in the middle of it restored once the doors closed behind him. "Well, you're already looking at the information I'd intended to look at when I came here," he said, looking at Andrew. "I don't see why you'd have to leave. Maybe you can help me." He motioned towards the display. "What have you figured out so far?"

Andrew looked down at the panel again, grateful to be able to look somewhere other than directly at his father. "According to Data's information, the ribbon is a conflux of temporal energy that travels through our galaxy every..." he found the exact calculation. "Thirty-nine point one years. So this would be the third pass since the Borg attack on El-Auria."

"So it's already back?"

Andrew nodded. "Yeah. It's already entered the galaxy and will pass through this sector in about thirty-one hours."

The captain started to pace on the short catwalk from the doorway to the middle platform. "Guinan said Soran was trying to get back to the ribbon. If that's true, then there must be some connection with the Amargosa star," he said, musing aloud.

"The star's destruction has had numerous astrophysical effects within this sector. So far, none of them appear to have a connection to the energy ribbon." Andrew started to dig deeper into the list of effects.

"Can you get a list of those effects? I want to know every single thing that's been altered or changed, no matter how insignificant," said Picard.

Andrew raised an eyebrow. Apparently he and his father were already thinking along the same lines. "It'll take the computer a few minutes to compile the information."

The silence wrapped around them as they waited, the only sounds the ones in their minds, bits and phrases from the argument earlier passing between them, unspoken. When the computer beeped to let them know it was done compiling, they were both grateful.

"According to our current information, the destruction of the Amargosa star has had the following effects in this sector." Andrew started reading the list, "Gamma emissions have increased by five percent. The starship _Bozeman_ was forced to make a course correction. A research project on Gorik Four was halted due to increased neutrino particles. Ambient magnetic fields have decreased by—"

Picard cut him off, voicing the beginnings of a thought with a question. "Wait. The _Bozeman_...why did it change course?"

Andrew frowned at the display. "The destruction of the Amargosa star has altered the gravitational forces throughout the sector. Any ship passing through this region will have to make a minor course correction. The _Enterprise_ did earlier as well." Realizing that the energy ribbon would had to have done the same, Andrew entered that information in the panel so it would show on the room's display.

"A minor course correction. Where is the ribbon now?" asked the captain.

Andrew pointed to where its avatar blinked. "It's right there."

"Can you project its course?"

"Maybe," he said, frowning at the more complicated set of mathematics that task required. "Give me a second." As he entered the numbers, the red line of the ribbon's path moved in an arc through the starfield.

"Enhance grid A-Nine," said Picard as soon as the arc started moving. "Where was the Amargosa star?"

Andrew tabbed the star's avatar to blink. "There."

"Now...you said the gravitational forces in this sector have been altered. It would have affected the course—"

"Of the ribbon," Andrew finished for him. He tapped the console and the red line shifted away from the Amargosa star. "Soran's changing its course. But why? Why try to alter its path...why not simply fly into it with a ship?"

His father turned to him. "Every ship which has approached the ribbon has either been destroyed or severely damaged," he said, his voice level.

"He can't go to the ribbon, so he's making the ribbon come to him." Andrew couldn't keep the anger out of his voice, that Soran could be so selfish as that. That he would do something as paltry as to kill his sister in order to help him on whatever quest he had with this energy ribbon.

For the moment, Picard ignored his son's anger. "Is it going to pass near any M-class planets?" he asked.

Attempting to keep focused, Andrew found the information. "There are two in the Veridian system," he said, keying a command to project the information around them. Four planets, a star, and the red line that denoted the ribbon's course appeared on the starfield.

The captain pointed towards the third planet. "It's very close to Veridian Three, but not close enough."

Andrew knew where Soran was going and what he was going to do now. He tapped in a command and the Veridian star darkened and went out. A cause—and the effect was the red line shifting to intersect with the third planet. "That's where he's going," he said. "He's going to destroy that star." Already, he was doing one more small calculation in his head and the anger came back, indignant, shouting to be let out. Allie had been chosen for no other reason than because her father was the captain of the nearest galaxy-class starship, for that slight gravitational difference.

Picard had yet to make the same determination. Instead, he followed the path his duty dictated. "The collapse of the Veridian star would produce a shock wave similar to the one we observed at Amargosa."

"And destroy every planet in the system," said Andrew, entering another command and making the four planets in the system disappear from view.

"Are any of them inhabited?"

Andrew glanced at the small display. "Veridian Three is uninhabited, but Veridian Four supports a pre-industrial humanoid society." He paused, unable to hold back his sarcasm. "But really, what's two hundred and thirty million more people to Soran?"

His father ignored the comment. "Picard to Bridge."

"Worf here, sir," came the disembodied reply.

"Red Alert, Mr. Worf. Set a course for the Veridian system, maximum warp."

"Aye, sir," Worf replied, then closed the comm channel.

Andrew waited for his father to leave, holding his breath, afraid to let himself think. When his father didn't leave, and his own lungs started a meaningful protest at Andrew not breathing, he let out that breath slowly. He'd figured his father would go straight back to work, not acknowledging anything that had happened before, or anything they had just discovered about Soran. Instead, he stayed, and stayed long enough for Andrew to lose the ability to hold in his thoughts. "Is it really as meaningless and stupid as that?" Andrew asked, standing and looking at Picard. "You happened to captain the closest Galaxy class ship."

The captain frowned his inability to understand immediately. "What do you mean?"

"If this ship hadn't been in the Amargosa system when its star was destroyed, then the Nexus would have skimmed across Veridian III's atmosphere and not gone through the planet itself." Andrew paused, tapping in the commands to display what he'd discovered on the starfield. "Soran needed the exact gravitational mass of this ship."

Now it was the captain holding his breath, staring at the solar system in front of them with its darkened star, only the third planet highlighted. He made his comment without turning to Andrew. "You know he caused it."

He didn't have to explain further, that 'he' was Soran and 'it' was the fire.

And Andrew knew what he meant. "For awhile I thought, maybe if it were arson, then it would have some meaning. But this, it's just as meaningless. He chose this ship for its gravitational pull, no matter how slight it is. Nothing more."

"There are other Galaxy class ships," said Picard.

He didn't think he'd overlooked any of the current courses of Starfleet vessels. "None as close as th—"

"There was another one closer. The _Trinculo_." The captain reached out past Andrew's hands and hit the control pad himself, adding the avatar of the other Galaxy class vessel.

Andrew couldn't argue with it. His father captained a Starfleet vessel, he'd have the most accurate information of the other ships in this sector. So now it made even less sense. If Soran were so focused on getting to this Nexus for whatever reason, to choose a ship farther away placed that mission in jeopardy. "Then why—"

As he'd anticipated his son's objection, he also anticipated his question. "The Borg," Picard answered.

"What?"

His father studied him, his eyes very serious. "I think he decided on the _Enterprise_ because her captain lived through assimilation. And not only did he live, but his family did as well."

Andrew was struck by the image of himself on this ship as an eleven-year-old, watching as his father was taken aboard a Borg ship, made into a Borg, and threatening all Federation life. Certainly not a wish he'd want fulfilled, to have witnessed that. "You didn't know about your family," he said, his eyes not quite focused, vaguely fixed on a star behind his father's head.

"I don't think he cares."

He didn't want this death, his sister's death, to be attributed to his father's assimiliation by the Borg. Enough deaths had been handed over to that cause already. "Plenty of other people died," he said.

"But no one so personal as a man's family. His died. Mine didn't. It's a punishment that he's decided to mete out."

Acceptance slowly came into being as his father refused to give in to denial. "So he killed my sister and tried to kill me...because you lived?"

Picard didn't look away. "And it was convenient," he said. "A nicely wrapped package."

Andrew couldn't look at him anymore, couldn't keep placing the blame at the feet of the people around him. "As stupid and meaningless as that," he said, blinking back tears, doing his best to ignore those same tears reflected in his father's eyes, and walked out the door.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

When Captain Jean-Luc Picard stepped through the entrance and into his quarters, he nearly stepped right back outside to double-check the nameplates outside the door to make sure they were actually his. The main living area of the cabin looked like a war zone. Shards of glass had set a minefield everywhere—in the impact area of the shattered coffeetable, then beyond, behind the sofa, around and on the armchairs. He saw that the projectile causing the damage had been his sextant, which was now lying in pieces underneath the table's frame. A measure of guilt went through him as he realized that he should have stayed here earlier in the day instead of taking the tactical retreat he'd made instead. But the argument he'd happened upon had frightened him, his wife and son throwing verbal barbs at one another, each one calculated to strike the other where they knew it would hurt the most.

Listening to them for the amount of time he had, he couldn't even choose a side, because each of them had valid reasons to feel the way they felt and think the way they thought. And little Gracie had just stood there, watching. Feeling like he was helpless in the situation, he'd left. He tried to tell himself that none of them had noticed his arrival and departure, but he was certain Andrew's eyes had moved to look at the doors when they had opened. Then later, Andrew hadn't said a word about it, hadn't even told him what had occurred after he'd left. And apparently, whatever it was had been dramatic.

The captain had returned to his quarters with the intention of explaining the current situation with Soran and that they would be arriving in the Veridian system soon. Beverly had to report to sickbay due to the threat of attack, but he'd wanted to give her that order in person, he owed her that much.

Beverly paced between the windows and the glass, holding Gabriel as he cried, attempting to calm him. Each time he would start to settle, she'd go back to the mess of glass and start trying to get it cleaned up, and then almost immediately, the infant would start crying again. Guilt hit him again, that he shouldn't have left earlier, just like he shouldn't have left all those years ago. There was no excuse for it. Gabriel's crying had covered up the sound of the doors and the doctor hadn't noticed that Picard had walked inside. The captain had a moment of jealousy towards his son, that he could cry out of the desperation and despair he felt, while the captain had to remain stoic. In control and able to function in his work because, after all, he had a ship to command.

When she turned to walk back towards the remains of the table, she started at seeing the captain. "Jean-Luc," she said.

He looked from the table to her and to their son. "What can I do to help?"

For a moment, she considered outright refusing any help from him. Then the frustration she felt at being unable to help her son overrode her indignance and she handed Gabriel over to his father. "See if you can get him to calm down," she said.

Like he did each time he was passed on to a new person, Gabriel quieted for a moment and studied the face of his new caregiver. Hope peeked into his mind, that the boy would stay settled. The captain remembered what Troi had said, how sensitive the infant was to the moods of those around him, especially his family. Obviously, Beverly was upset, and he had no reason to blame her for it after witnessing only part of the argument that had taken place between her and Andrew. Realizing he was the parent right then who had the best chance of remaining calm, the captain used his recollection of Sarek's self-calming techniques, ones he'd learned through the mind-meld and brought his emotions under control.

Gabriel stayed quiet and observant, looking away from his father and around the room.

Beverly raised an eyebrow. "I thought Andrew was the only one who could do that," she said. Her observation was made without any rancor and Picard thought there might even have been a hint of warmth in her voice, something he hadn't heard for days.

"I remembered that Counselor Troi..." he trailed off, realizing where the explanation would lead. It would remind them both of the event that had them so tied up within themselves.

"Jean-Luc, tell me."

"I remembered that Counselor Troi told me that Gabriel had started crying the moment I got the message about Allie on the holodeck. She said that he's sensitive to mood shifts within each of us on some level. So when I took him—"

"You made sure you had control of your emotions."

He nodded. "Yes."

"Must be nice." Now with both of her arms free, the doctor bent to finish picking up the glass shards.

The captain blinked at her ready acknowledgment of the lack of control she was having over her own emotions. He hadn't expected that. If anything, after what'd happened earlier, he expected to see her temper still frayed, and the wounds still stinging. Instead, she'd slipped back into that icy denial. He knelt down to the floor as well so he could look her in the eyes if she chose to look up from her task. "What happened?" he asked softly.

"There was an argument." She didn't look up.

"An argument," he repeated.

"A disagreement. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept."

He wanted to reach her. He had to, he knew that at this point, he was the only person who could. She'd turned to him before, after Jack's death, after Tasha's death, after the Borg. The Borg...yet another situation where he'd come out alive in the end when he, by all rights, should have died. After that experience, and many other near-death experiences in his life, including the reckless fight that had cost him his biological heart, he'd felt as if he'd cheated death.

And Soran was looking to even that score.

But it seemed that the universe had already chosen its own method, by causing Allie to die as a direct result of Picard's own survival of Borg assimilation. Part of that had been Soran's doing, but he knew the man wasn't done yet. More was to come, Picard was certain. He could lose Andrew, he knew Soran was after the boy. He knew Andrew blamed him for Allie's death, in his comment about her death being meaningless, in his inability to look directly at his father, in his quick departure from stellar cartography. Words weren't needed, the silence said enough.

Already, he was losing other parts of his life. The coldly quiet Beverly who was directly in front of him, except in truth, she was practically in another quadrant. And between them lay an ancient minefield, an old nebula filled with stars on the edge of collapse, or running up on their moment of going nova. If this standoff continued, he would lose her just as he had in the future Q had shown him. Beverly and Andrew were well on their way to their falling out. Gracie's personality had drastically changed, she'd gone from an outspoken child to a withdrawn and quiet, a disturbingly accurate mirror of her mother lately.

So reached out with his hand across the chasm, heading towards his wife's, seeking out that human touch they both needed. Briefly, he made contact with her soft skin. Then she jerked her hand away as if burned. The captain felt like he'd been punched in the solar plexus, that she would retract from his touch like that, that she would reject him so absolutely. The lack of words, that he could understand. The inability to verbally confront the reality that ate at them both, that he could understand. But she had never outright rejected his touch and now he had no idea what to do. There was nothing left for him to try, not yelling, not talking calmly, not even a comforting touch of two people sharing sorrow. There had been only one person who could have helped him figure this out, but she was the person whose death had led to this cold war.

Smarting from the rejection, he decided to try a different angle, to help someone else in this family before trying to reach his wife again, even as he told himself he shouldn't bother. "How did the table break?" he asked, his voice doing its best to break itself over the question.

"Ask your daughter," Beverly replied.

He frowned. "Where is she?"

"In her room."

Picard glanced over at the girl's closed door, then back to his wife. "You sent her there?" he asked, wondering what the child had done that could result in a shattered tabletop.

"No. She went herself." Beverly offered no additional information.

The frown remained on his face as he walked across the living area and into his daughter's room. The only thing that indicated her presence was a lump underneath the quilt on her bed, a quilt made by her great-grandmother and brought aboard from Caldos. The captain's brow furrowed in concern, the anger dissipating in the face of his daughter acting so frightened. Her shouts that had ended the previous argument came back to him. _"You have to stop!"_ But they'd yet to do so and it only troubled their daughter more as the war continued onward.

Picard knelt at the side of the girl's bed. "Gracie," he said, careful to temper his voice into one of a comforting whisper.

"Go away," came a reply muffled by the covers.

"I'm not going away," he said, switching Gabriel to his other arm so that he could reach out and place his hand on the girl's head through the covers.

"You're mad," she said.

He couldn't deny that much, she was absolutely right. He was mad and he'd been mad since he'd first found out about the fire. "Yes, I'm angry," he said. "But I'm not angry at you."

"You're angry at Mom."

"I'm not..." he paused, knowing full well the tension between himself and his wife and the words exchanged across that expanse. But he couldn't classify his emotion on the matter as anger. "...angry with your mother."

"You're _something _at her. What is it?"

"I don't know. If I knew, I'd tell you." He may not have before, but at this point, he was willing to try nearly anything.

"That's not a very good answer." She hadn't moved underneath her quilt.

The captain still got that strange feeling whenever he ended up arguing with his five-year-old. But he didn't classify this conversation as an argument, it was something different. "It's the only answer I have."

"You're really not mad at me?"

"I'm really not mad at you." Picard wondered how many times he would have to repeat the statement for his daughter to believe him. _As many as it takes_.

Gracie shifted in her hiding place, moving her head out from underneath his hand. "I was only trying to fix things, Papa," she said.

"What things?"

"Everything." Her voice had gotten impossibly smaller.

"Will you please come out from under there so I can see you?" This wasn't the type of conversation that should be conducted sans eye contact. He wanted to be able to see her face, to get a glimpse of what she might be thinking and feeling. She was young enough that even with who she had for parents, the control she had over the emotions she allowed to escape wouldn't be very tight.

"I can't." She shifted further away from him, the lump representing her little body underneath the quilt now up against the bulkhead.

He frowned. "Why not?"

"I didn't mean to break anything," she said, as if that would serve as the answer.

It did, at least for the captain. He understood what she meant by it—she was scared because she assumed she would be in trouble for breaking the table."You aren't in trouble for breaking the table," he said aloud.

"I broke your sextant too."

"I know," he said. "It's replaceable. You are not. What matters is that you're okay."

She didn't reply.

His hands went cold, wondering why she wouldn't reply to that last statement, afraid that somehow, she was hurt and wasn't letting on. "Gracie?" he asked.

"I'm right here," she said.

"Please come out," he asked.

"Can't."

The concern for her safety only rose with her one-word reply. He opted to use one of the most powerful tools he had available. "Mary Grace, come out from under there," he said, using his command voice.

Gabriel squirmed in his arms at the sudden change in his tone, then settled back down. As he did so, the quilt was lifted and then lowered by the five-year-old girl hiding underneath it. When she revealed her forehead, his response was immediate, reaching out to cup her chin in his hands. She had a laceration just above her left eye. It had already clotted up, but the cut obviously needed medical attention.

"I'm fine," Gracie said, moving her jaw against her father's hand.

He peered closely at the cut. "You are not," he said as he looked. He could see a tiny reflection as a piece of glass reflected the light from the ceiling. "You've got some glass imbedded there." He frowned. A cut like this shouldn't be left alone for long, especially not with a foreign object inside it. Meanwhile, a perfectly good physician was outside the room, and nothing had been done. It could leave a scar, a scar similar to what Soran had, one that constantly reminded him of what he had lost to the Borg.

"Stop frowning," she said, placing one of her hands over his.

He dropped his hand away from her chin and smoothed her auburn hair. "You didn't tell your mother, did you," he said.

Gracie slowly shook her head.

"Why not?"

She shrugged, picking at the quilt with her fingers, studying it with rapt attention.

He waited.

Once she realized that her father wasn't going to give up, she relented. "I'm too scared," she said.

"Your mother's a doctor," he said, trying to appeal to reason and not acknowledging the fact that at some point, his daughter had become afraid of her mother in some way.

She didn't look up. "I don't want a doctor, I want my mother." The statement had stopped so suddenly that the captain realized there was much more behind what she had said, that there was a lot more she wanted to say, but couldn't figure out how to say it.

To him, it was a full illustration of how distant Beverly had become to them all and his anger rode in again on the back of the protectiveness he had over his daughter. "Please let her fix your cut," he said, reaching out and enveloping her small hand in his large one.

"She'll be mad."

He raised an eyebrow. "That you didn't tell her right away? Yes, she'll be upset because she wasn't given the chance to take care of you. She's your mother."

"She's a doctor." Gracie finally looked up, but not at her father. Instead, she studied her brother, who studied her in return. "He's got eyes like Nana's," she said, reaching out and running her hand over the top of Gabriel's head.

The captain wasn't going to let her change the subject. "Your Nana was a doctor," he said. "And even if she were mad at you, you would still trust her enough to fix a cut. She wouldn't hurt you."

"I know she wouldn't hurt me," Gracie said, now tracing the tip of one of her brother's ears. "He's got your ears. They're almost pointy, like a Vulcan's."

"One of the doctors in sickbay is a Vulcan."

Gracie scowled and glared up at Picard. "I don't want to see that doctor."

"That doesn't leave you much choice then, does it? You'll just have to let your mother, who just so happens to be a doctor, take a look at it."

The scowl didn't fade from the girl's face. "Papa, I don't think you—"

The doors opened and Gracie fell silent as Beverly walked into the room. "I heard you talk about a doctor," she started to say, then her trained physician's eye caught sight of Gracie's cut and she was reaching into her labcoat pocket and shifting gears. "And now I see why."

Picard stood up, taking a few steps away from the bed as Beverly pulled out a tricorder and scanned their daughter. Gracie kept glaring at her father.

"How did this happen?" Beverly asked. "Oh...you've got some glass imbedded in there. It must be from the table, some of the shards must've gone over the sofa and hit you." She spoke rapidly, not giving Gracie time to reply to her question, ending up answering it herself. The doctor went to feel around the cut with her fingers and Gracie shied away from her mother's touch.

Beverly bit her lip, her eyes showing how much Gracie's action had hurt her. The captain felt sympathetic to her for a moment, then remembered that Beverly had done the same to him only a short while ago. He'd gone to touch her and she'd recoiled as if he'd been a deadly snake. The girl at least had a reason, certainly any poking or prodding on or around the injury site would cause physical pain. Last time he knew, caressing someone's hand, or even holding it, didn't cause pain like that.

"It must hurt," Beverly said.

"It does if anyone touches it. Even me," Gracie replied.

"I can fix that," the doctor said, her tone the softest Picard had heard it be in the past few days. This time when Beverly reached out, Gracie stayed put, allowing her mother to hold her head still as she worked over the cut with a plaser.

The irrational anger tore at him again, watching as Beverly healed their daughter, a gift she had both as a physician and as a mother. But so often as of late, Beverly chose to ignore that part of herself as a mother. Picard frowned, wondering if his wife had thought about that at all during the children's lives, how much she could have healed them by saying something, instead of allowing the wounds to fester by saying nothing.

"Jean-Luc, I would appreciate it if you would stop looking at me like that," Beverly said, not needing to look behind her to see the glare the captain had fixed on her. "I need Gracie to relax and she isn't and if she doesn't relax, I won't be able to heal this without some sort of scar. I'd like to avoid that, I'm sure she would, and she's all tensed up."

He said the first thing that came to mind, before he even knew he'd thought of it. "Well, who's fault is that? Does she need to be brought to sickbay for another doctor to take a look at her? After all, you've inflicted enough damage on our children." Gabriel squirmed him his arms as the captain felt himself tensing up.

"Jean-Luc Picard, don't you _dare_ question my medical expertise," Beverly said, the icy glare evident enough in her voice that turning around to place it on its victim was needless. It left her with the ability to continue working on the cut.

"It's not your medical expertise I'm questioning," replied the captain, adjusting his infant son in his arms as the boy started to fuss.

The beam emitting from the plaser suddenly shut off as the doctor shoved it into her pocket and snapped around to face Picard. "Who the hell do you think you are to question my parenting?" she asked, the softness of the tone she'd had with Gracie now entirely extinguished by her anger. "You sat here and told all of us that we could change the future Q showed you, that it would be different, that we would all be safe. And none of that's true, is it? I'm beginning to think you lied to us to try and make us feel better for the time being, like you always do, your little way of trying to protect us. Well, it failed miserably, if you haven't figured it out. None of us are safe, Allie the least safe out of all of us, she completely slipped away and you just let it happen. So don't you start throwing rocks at me until you've stepped out of your nice little glass house."

"If I were in a glass house, then all my feelings would be entirely transparent and I wouldn't be hiding. Is that true? Am I transparent while you accuse me of hiding myself from you? Or do you think that maybe, for once, it's the other way around? Since we're talking about rocks, why don't you come out from under that rock you've been hiding under and face what's going on around you. Everything is coming apart and you just go on being the doctor and not—"

"And you just go on being the captain, not even arriving in time to stop the attack on the observatory, we almost lost Andrew because you failed—"

"We didn't lose him and we aren't going to and it has nothing to do with—"

"Stop!" Gracie shouted, standing up on the bed, then jumping off and putting herself in between where her parents stood, nearly squared off. Gabriel had already added his objections, now crying as loudly as he'd been when the captain had first arrived.

For the first time, the two adults completely ignored their daughter's request. "It has _everything_ to do with it," Beverly said. "It's a continuing pattern of yours, failure after failure—"

"Please stop," Gracie said, defeat already quieting her voice as she sat down on the floor between them. "Please." Her hands went to her ears, covering them as the arguing didn't abate.

"I don't understand how you can expect me to predict and then promptly shift the course of the inner workings of the universe," he said, his tone now a steely hard as his eyes had become. "I don't understand how being unable to do so could be construed as a failure."

"Maybe some things just aren't meant to be," Beverly said.

The quick drop in the volume of her speech and the vague, yet dooming statement she'd given brought Picard back into the realm of fear, well away from anger. "What are you saying?"

The doctor crossed her arms. "We can't go on like this."

Fate stood between them, grinning wickedly at them both as the silence wrapped up their thoughts, covered their mouths, and didn't allow them to speak. Even through the infant's cries, silence managed to keep its cold fingers on them all.

Then it was broken by an intrusion from the bridge, Worf's voice over the comm channel causing them all to jump at the outsider's interruption. "Captain, please report to the bridge. A Klingon vessel has de-cloaked directly ahead."

Picard's hand tapped his communicator, but it felt like a stranger's hand. "On my way." A stranger's voice.

"You do that," the doctor said, leaving the room.

He followed her, again shifting Gabriel in his arms, hoping that he could settle the boy before he had to leave, but knew it would be hopeless at the knot that had wrapped around his chest and left him practically unable to breathe. Footsteps behind him told him that Gracie had followed them out as well.

"You can't say that!" she said, back to shouting, even with her voice left scratchy from the yelling before.

The doors to the corridor opened as the captain drew near and Andrew stepped into the doorway is if to come inside, then when he saw what was going on, he went to make an about-face. Seeing his chance, Picard reached out and got a handful of Andrew's shirt and hauled him back, allowing the door to shut on the outside. The boy's eyes were wide, panic rife inside them, but the captain was desperate. He had to leave, everyone was closing off from everyone else, and he'd seen something in his son that told him that Andrew was willing to try and keep them all together.

He also had the ability to comfort his brother and get him to stop crying.

The captain handed Andrew the infant. "Do what you can," Picard said, pitching his voice so that only Andrew would hear. "I'll be on the bridge." Then he left, leaving behind the unanswered questions in his older son's eyes.

In the turbolift, he leaned against the wall for support, closing his eyes and bringing his focus away from everything else and back to the ship he was supposed to command. There could be an attack, which certainly seemed imminent now with the Klingon cruiser de-cloaking. Beverly couldn't be expected to report to sickbay now...he tapped his communicator. "Picard to Selar."

"Selar here."

"Doctor, I'm advising you that the chief medical officer will be unavailable until further notice."

"Understood," replied Selar, then she closed the channel, the important information communicated.

The 'lift stopped. Picard took another calming breath, feeling his mask of control settling into place. _I have a ship to command_. He would always have that. Then he stepped onto the bridge. "Mr. Worf, have they hailed us?"

"No, sir," replied the Klingon.

"Mr. Data, will we be able to stop a probe if it's launched?" he asked, walking down the ramp and to the command center. The rest of the staff there stood up upon his arrival. He managed to catch Deanna giving Riker a concerned look after she had taken once glance at the captain.

"According to my calculations, a solar probe launched from either the Klingon ship or the planet's surface will take eleven seconds to reach the star. However, since we do not know the exact point of origin, it will take us between eight and fifteen seconds to lock our weapons onto it," replied Data, swiveling to face the captain.

"Right," said Will, scowling.

Picard refrained from doing the same as his first officer. "How long until the ribbon arrives?"

"Approximately 47 minutes." Data turned back to his console.

"Captain, we are being hailed," said Worf.

He hadn't even gotten a chance to sit down. "On screen," said Picard.

The forward viewscreen came to life and there stood the Duras sisters, Lursa and B'Etor. "Captain, what an unexpected pleasure," said Lursa, licking her lips.

He knew she was gearing up for one of her games, it was her way. But he didn't have time for that sort of thing. He got straight to the point. "Lursa, I want to talk to Soran." Soran was the man responsible for all of this and Picard needed to stop him from continuing it any further than it had already gone.

"Oh," said Lursa, mock disappointment dripping from her voice. "I'm afraid the doctor is no longer on our ship."

He wasn't going to play, no matter how hard either sister tried. "Then I'll beam down to his location. Just give us his coordinates."

B'Etor spoke this time. "The doctor values his privacy. He would be quite...upset if he were interrupted by a group of Starfleet officers.. And we wouldn't want to upset him, would we?"

Picard was reminded of trying to reason with his five-year-old. "Very well. I'll beam to your ship and you can transport me to Soran."

His suggestion caught the Duras sisters so off-guard that they fell silent for a moment. Riker took that moment to speak up in order to protect his captain. "You can't trust them, Captain. They'll kill you like they did Geordi." Will even managed to bring up the issue of their missing comrade as he did it.

Lursa immediately went on the defensive. "We did not kill your engineer. He has been..." she glanced over at her sister.

"Our guest," B'Etor finished.

_I wonder if Allie and Gracie would have been like that, relying on one another for support, able to know one another so well_, Picard thought, then forced his mind to stop wandering.

"Then return him," said Riker.

"In exchange for what?" asked Lursa.

Picard jumped back me. "Me," he said. "In exchange for me. If you let me talk to Soran." He saw his escape from the storm surrounding him, he could do this, talk to Soran, get him to stop this destruction.

"The captain would make a much more valuable hostage," B'Etor said to Lursa.

Lursa nodded. "We'll consider it a prisoner exchange," she said to Picard.

"Agreed," said the captain. The viewscreen went black as the Duras sister's closed the channel. Picard looked at Will. "Number One, you have the bridge."

"Captain!" said Troi, finally voicing her objections.

"Counselor," he said, giving her a nod of dismissal. Then he headed for the turbolift. Only when he neared the doors did he notice that Deanna had followed him, entering the 'lift as he did. He refused to frown. It didn't matter. He knew she wouldn't be able to change his mind. Beverly might have been, but things were different. This choice of his would make her angry, but he could face that anger, despite its fire, it was warm and familiar. He could take that kind of anger because eventually, he knew it would pass and they would be okay. But now, she was angry at the universe and had decided to make him its embodiment, and didn't seem very keen on the idea of letting that particular anger pass. He kept his silence as the counselor stood next to him.

"Captain, you shouldn't be doing this," she said.

"Deanna, there's no reason for this to be discussed. It's been decided. The Duras sisters are sending the coordinates even as we speak. This is about two hundred and thirty million people, it's more important than any of us."

"This isn't about two hundred and thirty million people," Troi said.

Picard raised an eyebrow at the counselor. He knew she'd read the report. How could she not remember that bit of information? "Counselor, you are aware that Soran intends to destroy the Veridian star? And that the star's destruction that will result in a level twelve shockwave that will in turn destroy Veridian Four? Because that planet as two hundred and thirty—"

"—million people on it," Troi finished for him. "And I'm still saying that it isn't about two hundred million people, or even a hundred thousand, or fifty. Right now, this is about two people. You and Beverly."

He looked away from the counselor and straight ahead at the 'lift doors. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Captain, you are highly unstable right now, as is the doctor. Neither one of you should be on duty right now, much less you beaming down to conduct negotiations one-on-one with the man both of you believe to be responsible for your daughter's death."

"This isn't about Allie," he said as the lift stopped and the doors opened.

Troi followed him as he walked to the transporter room. "Captain," she repeated.

When they entered the transporter room, he stopped and turned to face her. "Counselor. Both of us know that you aren't going to relieve me of duty right now and unless you decide to do exactly that, nothing you say will stop me from going down to that planet to speak with Soran."

Troi didn't reply right away.

Picard stepped up onto the platform during the counselor's silence.

The transporter chief, highly uncomfortable, had steadfastly stared at his console. Once he saw Picard on the platform, he said, "Receiving the coordinates, Captain."

Still, Deanna said nothing. Instead, she studied him and he saw the same look in her eyes that she had seen in Gracie's, pleading for him to stop.

But he couldn't. He had to do this. So he looked away from Troi and back to the chief. "Energize," he said, the command in his voice clear, as always.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Captain Jean-Luc Picard was surprised to find himself materializing on a Klingon ship's transporter pad rather then the planet that hung below. He raised an eyebrow at B'Etor, who stood in front of the pad.

"No worries, Captain. This is just a small side trip. I'll only be needing that pretty badge of yours, and you'll be back on your way," she said, extending her hand.

Without argument, he plucked the badge off his chest and dropped it in the woman's hand. B'Etor smiled, motioned to the officer at the transporter controls, and Picard felt the transporter beam wash over him again. This time, he materialized where he expected to—on the surface of Veridian Three. He'd been beamed to the top of a large plateau, the ground falling away around it, leaving only the scrub and stunted trees on its wind-scoured surface. A lone rock face jutted upward and against it rested an intricate scaffolding and ladder system weaving its way to a narrow ledge at the top, nearly a dozen meters upward.

Squinting in the harsh sunlight from a star he was going to try and keep from being destroyed at the whim of a madman, Picard searched for Soran. With how bright it was, he knew he'd have to look for a silhouette, to ignore the sounds of the wind shifting dust around him, the tittering of animals that had yet to be catalogued, and focus only on finding Soran.

Then he saw him. Soran stepped out from the shadow under a nearby bit of scaffolding, his pocketwatch in his hand, his eyes studying it. As if he'd just noticed the captain's appearance, Soran snapped shut the watch's cover and it disappeared in his jacket as he began to study Picard as calmly and intently as he had his watch.

Picard studied him in return, forcing everything that had happened to him and his family in the past few days—and even the past hour—into a strong lockbox so that he could focus. So badly he'd wanted to confront this man, and now he couldn't think of what to say.

"You must think me quite the madman," Soran said, breaking the silence for him.

Had the captain not already been squinting, he would have blinked. Still unable to force his thoughts to a diplomatic bend, he defaulted to sarcasm. "The thought had crossed my mind," he replied.

Soran gave him the ghost of a smile, one of a man who had long since forgotten the emotion that caused a person to smile. "The only possible reason you're here is because you're not entirely confident you can shoot down my probe after all. So you've come to dissuade me from my horrific plan."

Picard was beginning to wonder if El Aurians were truly telepathic and just never let on. He continued squinting in Soran's direction, making a mental note that he and Guinan would have to have a chat if he ever returned to the ship.

When the captain didn't reply, the skeleton smile that quirked Soran's mouth grew a little. "Good luck," he said, then walked back toward the scaffolding.

Picard followed him and walked smack into a forcefield. He stumbled back, then regained his footing, his hand rubbing his forehead his only concession to the slight headache that run-ins with forcefields tended to cause. Now he could see the perimeter, the controls of the forcefield hidden in the scrub and the nooks of the cairns of the plateau. Chastising himself for not noticing before, he studied the scaffolding more closely. Soran's launcher had to be here somewhere, yet there wasn't a hint of it aside from the network of ladders and platforms against the lone rock. And the El Aurian didn't seem very hurried to find it either, instead concentrating on the padd in his hand that had taken the place of the watch.

The captain remembered that he was a practiced diplomat. He could talk Soran out of this. He had to. "You don't need to do this, Soran," he said, pitching his voice so that Soran had to hear. "I'm sure we could find another way to get you into this Nexus of yours." As he spoke, he walked the perimeter of the forcefield, keeping an eye out for a way in, a break in the field somewhere.

The scientist didn't reply right away. Instead, he hit a few controls on his padd and the launcher Picard had been searching for decloaked right in the middle of the scaffolding. Tucking the padd away in the same pocket as his watch, Soran climbed up onto the platform and began to work the control panel for the launcher. At least, that's what Picard assumed the newly revealed panel was for.

Soran replied to Picard without looking up. "I've spent eighty years looking for another way, Captain. This is the only one."

Then he looked up and straight at the captain, his icy eyes boring into him, and Picard was certain the man was looking at his soul.

"Of course, you could always come with me," Soran said, keeping a steady gaze on Picard. "You fancy yourself an explorer. Here's a chance to explore something no human has ever experienced."

Disgust rolled through the captain. "Not if it means killing over two hundred million people," he said. _Not if it means killing even one_, he thought when the image of Allie passed in front of his eyes. When that comment came and went with no effect, he continued, deciding to get as personal as Soran already had with him. "I wonder...did your wife Janan know that she married a man who was capable of mass murder?"

A veil, one made of fabric dark and ugly, passed over Soran's eyes, then drew his face into a brief rictus of hate.

Picard knew he'd found the right approach to bring Soran's defenses down and he continued. "When you tucked your children into bed, do you suppose they ever suspected that their father would one day kill millions as casually as he kissed them goodnight?" The question had been posed with the intention of hitting Soran in a tender area, but Picard hadn't given thought that it would hit him practically as hard.

When the memory hit him, it wasn't of Allie, it was of Gracie. Her little voice and those innocent eyes, speaking to him of her dream when she had barely met him only three days before, when he'd tucked his own daughter in for the first time.

_"Can I tell you my fairly tale?"_

_"Certainly."_

_"I dreamed last night that I was happy. I dreamed that Beverly was my mother, that you were my papa, and we were all together." _

He hadn't known what to say, he hadn't even been capable of words in that moment. But the little girl knew and she forged onward, determined to make things happen.

_"Can you try to make it come true?"_

_"I'll do my best."_

And he realized that despite the promise he'd made, he hadn't done his best. Now fresh memories replaced the ones only a year old, a stark contrast to the hope from before. He'd continued arguing with Beverly, verbally striking out as she did to cover up the pain they should have shared and not tried to hide from the other. They had continued arguing, completely ignoring their young daughter shouting between them, trying to get them to stop before they went too far. Before it was too late.

_"We can't go on like this." _Beverly had said that and Gracie's protests had gone silent because she hadn't stopped them in time, it had gone too far. It was too late.

_"You can't say that!" _

Gracie had shouted the statement he'd wanted to shout, the only one of them with the impetus to shout at the universe to stop this awful slide into the depths of a storm much worse than what Q had shown him months ago. So when he had kissed his own daughter good night, had she ever suspected that her father would so easily forget the promise he'd made her?

The captain chased his memories away again, knowing he needed to stay focused on the present. He needed to stay focused on the man barely ten meters away from him, his eyes vulnerable for just one moment, then the moment vanished, swallowed up entirely by the hate he'd seen earlier. And again, the smile's shadow appeared. "Nice try," said Soran, turning his back on the captain and once again going back to his control panel.

Were Picard a five-year-old, he would have kicked the dirt in front of him out of frustration. Instead, he kept walking the perimeter, the closest thing he could get to pacing on the plateau. He'd somehow forgotten what Soran had gone through in the midst of the Borg invasion of El-Auria, the awful request the man had had to fulfill for his wife. His words had gone and reminded the man and now he'd only succeeded to make him even more determined to go through with his plan.

When Guinan and Beverly had explained the incident to him, he hadn't understood. He hadn't wanted to, because it was something so unfathomable that he didn't want to think it to be possible no matter what the circumstance. But the man standing at the controls of the launcher, he'd gone through a circumstance Picard couldn't have even imagined as a nightmare, much less reality. Once Guinan had reminded him of the un-death that assimilation was, he'd understood why the decision had been made. It was a plan that had been begging Soran for completion for nearly a century. Picard knew it then. Somehow, the Nexus would allow Soran to once again be with his family.

It made the El Aurian all the more dangerous. He would have to try another tactic, find something about his plan that would render Soran as repulsive as the beings that had taken away his family. "What you're about to do is no different from when the Borg destroyed your world," he said aloud.

Soran kept to his work, leaving his voice calm, almost conversational. "You're right," he said. "And there was a time when I wouldn't have hurt anyone. Then the Borg came, and they showed me that if there is one constant in this universe, it's death. Afterwards, I began to realize that none of it mattered. We're all going to die anyway. It's only a question of how and when. You will too, Captain. You might contract a fatal disease...you might die in battle..." he trailed off and finally took his eyes off his work.

Soran transfixed the captain with his deep stare again, leaving Picard absolutely immobile, as if time had frozen.

"Or burn to death in a fire."

Picard physically took a step backwards from the impact of Soran's statement.

The specter tugged at Soran's mouth again. "You looked surprised. But you shouldn't be. Can't you feel time gaining on you? It's like a predator. It's stalking you. You can try to outrun it with doctors, medicines, new technologies...but in the end, time is going to hunt you down and make the kill."

"As you have," the captain said, now knowing for certain it was Soran who had set the fire that had resulted in his daughter's, nephew's, and brother's deaths. "We're all mortal. It's one of the truths of our existence."

"There's a new truth, Picard," Soran said. "It's the Nexus. Time has no meaning there. The predator has no teeth." He said it as if that concept alone would justify any and all actions he'd taken to arrange his rendezvous with the energy ribbon. Satisfied, Soran turned back to the control panel.

But it didn't justify anything, not for the captain, not for anyone could Soran's actions, past and future, be justified. He resumed his walk around the perimeter, feeling as if he were standing watch. This conversation had to remain impersonal, or he'd be blinded exactly as Soran intended. But personal recourse seemed to be the only option he had left. Maintaining his gaze on the path ahead of him, he asked, "Why not the _Trinculo_?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Soran look up sharply. "Pardon?"

The captain stopped his walking in front of a gnarled root that formed an arch above the ground, the remnant of an wizened, stunted tree nearby. "I asked why you didn't choose the _Trinculo_. After all, she's the Galaxy class ship that was closest to the observatory. It's a simple question, really."

"Other than the interference your ship has given me, I don't see why I'd care about any Galaxy class ships, one way or another," Soran said, returning his look to the control panel yet again.

"Now, that's odd. I rather think you would care, and a great deal at that. After all, you needed the exact gravitational mass of a Galaxy class vessel in the Amargosa system when you destroyed its star. Otherwise, when you plan to destroy this star, if you hadn't had that gravitational mass before, the Nexus would have just skipped across the atmosphere of this planet, just out of your reach, and gone forever. So I ask you again, why not the _Trinculo_?"

"It was easier to get the _Enterprise _there even though it was a greater distance away," said Soran.

"You seemed to have went through a remarkable amount of trouble to get my ship where you wanted it."

Soran tapped in a few more commands as he spoke. "Picard, it was no trouble for me at all. Once you set the dominos, you only have to tip the first one and then you can sit back and watch them all fall in that pattern you designed."

The captain knelt in front of the root and studied the arch it formed with great care. If Soran hadn't shown the same care, then the forcefield might not extend to the ground underneath the arch. It might be a way inside the perimeter. "I suppose you're also going to tell me it was all nothing personal," he said, picking up a few pebbles.

"Oh, some of it was certainly personal. In fact, a great deal of it lately has been very personal. What exactly do you want to hear from me, Picard? Yes, I arranged for the fire. Yes, I arranged to have your family stunned so that they would be caught in the fire. Yes, I arranged to have one of the twins die and the other live. I _had_ arranged for the other to die in the attack, but my conspirators failed me in that regard." Soran looked up. "After all, it would be cruel of me to expect the boy to live without his twin, now wouldn't it?"

The frank admittance of the personal nature of Soran's choice caught the captain by surprise, his head reeled as if Soran had let loose a flurry of punches about his skull. When he was able to clear his sight and look at Soran, Picard saw that the hate had returned, an unsettling darkness in otherwise light eyes.

And that smile. "Isn't it a fantastic feeling, living life as the universe intended, Picard? Watching, entirely helpless, as everything slips away, breaking to pieces all around you. Your son blaming you, your little daughter afraid of everyone, and your pretty wife barely even speaking to you unless it's to argue. Tell me...has there been talk of divorce yet? Or have things not gotten quite that far?"

The captain closed his eyes against the other man's words, even though he knew it would do nothing to stop them, or the memories they dragged outward.

_"We can't go on like this." _

"By your lack of reply, I see that they have." The smile didn't leave Soran's face as he glanced at the sky again, expectant.

Finally, the captain was able to form a question. "Why?" He'd lost any tactical advantage that he may have had, all his weaknesses proclaimed themselves in that single, strangled word.

"Because you slipped from the predator's grasp. You eluded time and now the predator stalks the others in the herd, culling the weakest and youngest from the pack, the ones the adults thought were safe enough to leave alone for the smallest of moments. And in those moments, that's when the predator strikes. Now I am that predator, making sure that you can be brought down, even if it takes stripping away your entire family to finally get to you."

Picard couldn't understand what would make this man inflict what had happened to him onto other people. If anything, it should have made him more sympathetic to the plight of others, perhaps more like Guinan. This man had not only had to watch his family die, he'd had to be the one to carry out their death sentences, rather than let them be taken by the Borg. Suddenly, the captain understood. He would no rather see his own children taken by the Borg, assimilated, drained of color and personality, drained of their very selves, and made to service a collective that knew nothing except to expand and conquer.

And he had been one of them, and through the very nature of their collective, he had been _them_. When he had been Locutus, he hadn't even known that he threatened not only the Federation, not just the existence of humanity and countless other species, he'd also threatened the existence of his own children. For him not to know about them during those moments, it had been a gift, however small, a reprieve from the torment it would have been to know. It had been hard enough with the other personal relationships he had, viewing his friends through the cold eyes of the collective, while the small scrap of himself that was left screaming for them to run far and fast and well away from the arms of the Borg.

But Beverly had known. She'd known the entire time that her children were in danger and somehow had soldiered on, not bolting to protect them as he would have told her to do, had he been able. And if he had known.

Regret trickled through him over his actions, over the feelings that he'd allowed to spew forth, allowing them a sway they didn't deserve. When he'd told Beverly that he didn't hold what she'd done against her, he'd meant it. Then he'd gone and let himself throw out that old hurt, not because he truly felt it, but because he'd known it would hurt her as much as her words had hurt him. Somehow, Beverly's actions hadn't been reprehensible because it seemed the universe had intended for those three children to remain hidden until it was safe, at least safe from the Borg.

Soran hadn't had that luxury of the universe deciding for him. He'd been forced to make that decision himself, had been forced to take action. Then the action had been halted before it had come to its end, the last domino suspended just above the table, waiting, hoping, incomplete. His wife had saved him the agony of him administering the fatal dose by doing it herself when he was distracted. The captain realized that he or Beverly would have done the same for the other. It struck him—_perhaps Soran and I are not so different than one would think_. Soran was a man on a mission to make what he wished for come true, but at some point, that wish had consumed his entire being, shutting out his ability to connect with other conscious, living beings.

Guinan had told him the full story, told him that Soran had been the one to put his five-year-old daughter to eternal sleep. He'd done it with the knowledge that he was saving her from an eternity of pain and that he would be joining her shortly. Then he hadn't and now Picard understood the amount of pain that must have caused Soran. Being so hurt, Soran had replaced every emotion with coldness, allowing only his hatred free reign. He'd done it out of necessity and protection and the results yielded had become catastrophic.

Picard rubbed the pebbles in his hand around his palm. "What was her name?" he asked, the question pitched as softy as his others had been, but now the hurt had gone, supplanted, of all things, by empathy.

"What?" Soran had returned to his work while the captain delved into his thoughts and the question caught him off-guard.

"Your daughter. What was her name?" The captain made sure that his voice contained only open curiosity. He'd asked the question out of need, another tack to try and distract Soran long enough to have the ribbon pass them by, but once he'd asked, he found that he truly wanted to know the answer.

Soran's eyes narrowed, suspicious of the captain's motives, but he answered anyway. "Hani."

"What was she like?" Idly, Picard wondered if Hani and Gracie could have ever been friends, had they been of similar age and lived in similar times.

The El Aurian looked as if he should know better than to answer, but the compulsion to talk about his lost daughter was too strong. "She was...she could smile and brighten the moods of everyone in the entire room. She was so gentle, a very loving child. She was also very inquisitive, always asking questions..." Soran trailed off, his eyes closing the same as Picard's had minutes before. He was remembering something. His eyes opened again and the pain inside of them was fresh, the first true emotion Soran had revealed to an outsider aside from hate in eighty years. "You ask a lot of questions yourself, Picard. A fine distraction technique."

Soran went back to his work, closing off any further conversation.

But Picard had found the man's true weakness, the same weakness as any father who loved a daughter. A daughter was at once a great weakness and a great strength. When you saw them for the first time, you were instantly theirs, they could ask anything of you and you would do it in an instant for this marvel. It astounded him, when he was with his daughters, that somehow he'd help to create a person of the opposite sex. And despite his role in their creation, he understood them no more than he'd understood women before they had been born. If anything, they confused him more, as if immediately upon birth they were inducted into a women's galactic conspiracy to befuddle men. But it didn't matter, he loved them anyway.

_"Good night, Papa." _

Heard for the first time that night a year ago, those words had taken his heart so quickly that he never had time to blink, he never thought it possible to love another person in such a short amount of time, but he'd found that it was. He hadn't recognized what sort of instance it was, not until he'd watched his younger son being born and held the boy for the first time. It was that instant where you held a child with your eyes, seeing them for the first time as your child, seeing the bond form, seeing the being that was part of both you and the woman you loved, and knowing one of the strongest forms of love that could ever be experienced.

And somehow, that love Soran had for his daughter had been twisted into an ugly hatred when she had been taken away from him, and that's what drove him, he had to return to her as he'd promised he would. The captain knew now what he could say to drive the man off course, but it was too late for that, now he had to be able to physically stop him. Picard tossed a few pebbles in random directions to make sure Soran only thought him bored.

Annoyed, Soran glared at Picard. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

The captain gave him a slight shrug, the same one he'd seen his son give his mother whenever he was annoying her with his fidgeting. Once Soran was absorbed back into his task, Picard chucked of a pebble over the arch formed by the root. At least, he made the attempt to do so, but the forcefield flashed into life and repelled the pebble back out into the perimeter.

"Careful, Captain," Soran said from his spot on the platform. "That's a fifty gigawatt forcefield. I wouldn't want to see you get hurt."

Picard saw that he wouldn't be hurt. Underneath that root, in that arch, the forcefield hadn't formed. He had a way in. "Thank you," he said, intended for Soran to hear as thanks for a warning, but really offered as thanks for the oversight on Soran's part. He tossed another small rock, this one aimed for the open arch. The pebble skittered through and into the area protected by the forcefield. He still had a chance to stop him.

* * *

Beverly Picard hadn't objected to the silence that followed Jean-Luc's departure. Gabriel quieted in Andrew's arms, Andrew holding his brother as he stood next to the windows, focused on somewhere outside the ship. She didn't blame him and wished she could do the same. Now the emotions threatened to overwhelm her, to breach the dam and let every true feeling come out, all of the defensive measures swept away in the rush of truth. So she went to the terminal and pulled up the reports from sickbay. Despite what she was reading and the Bird of Prey hanging outside the windows, her place would be here. She closed her eyes, holding her head in her hands.

hr

Light footsteps approached her cautiously, as if they were afraid to tread anywhere near her. Then there was that small voice. "Am I a bad kid?" came Gracie's question.

Her eyes flew open and she saw the daughter who had stood in front of her in Nana's kitchen on Caldos, making that same observation with the finality only a five-year-old can know.

_"I thought it was because I was a bad kid."_

And then the desperation of the child who stood in front of her now, trying to save her dream. _"You have to stop! You can't say that!"_

She and Jean-Luc had made that dream come true, the one Gracie had whispered to each of them, asking both of them to make it come true. A promise both of them had made and until a few days ago, had kept. But now they were breaking that same promise and again, Gracie blamed herself, taking on the responsibility for the way events had unfolded. How could she have forgotten how personally Gracie had taken it when she witnessed her father's anger at her mother? She'd thought he was rejecting her as well. _"But he got mad when you told him." _

Her own actions came back to her. How resolutely she'd spoken, her hands on her daughter's small shoulders. _"He was mad at me for not telling him. He wasn't mad at you, he's not mad at your brother and sister, either. He loves you, I promise that."_

Then Beverly realized that she was displacing that anger just as Jean-Luc had then, or at least projected his anger enough that others felt they were targets. _I'm not mad at him. I'm mad at the universe and I thought he was strong enough to take any anger I could dish out. This can't go on much longer, Jean-Luc. And by 'this' I meant all of this displacement and hiding and refusing to admit and begin to accept what's happened. I shouldn't have left the statement like I had. I could never leave you and I should have never made you think that I could._

Beverly opened her eyes, her decision made. She wouldn't be hiding anymore. The doctor got out of her chair and knelt at Gracie's level, put her hands on her daughter's shoulders again. "No, you aren't a bad kid." She moved forward and placed a kiss on Gracie's forehead, then leaned hers against her daughter's. "None of this is your fault, or anyone else's fault, except mine and your father's. We're mad because of what happened to Allie and we're taking it out on each other and we need to stop doing that because it's hurting everyone."

She hadn't closed her eyes again, instead she focused them on Gracie's gray ones, allowing her daughter to see what she really felt. More footsteps came near, Andrew had made his way over. Gracie had thrown her arms around her neck, buried her face in her shoulder. Still, the little girl didn't cry.

Beverly looked up at Andrew.

He scowled, but it was a scowl laced with relief and tinged with his gallows humor. "A fine time to finally come around," he said, shaking his head. "Your timing needs some serious work. I bet you he's making that same realization down on that planet right now. Honestly, the two—"

The ship shuddered and lurched, sending Andrew stumbling back, instinctively holding his infant brother to his chest in order to protect him. "That was a torpedo hit," he said, recovering his footing and rushing towards his mother and sister. In his arms, Gabriel had started to cry and Andrew handed him over to Beverly. "I want see what's going on," he said, already heading towards the window to watch the battle outside, yet having the good sense to not take his brother over with him.

Gracie pushed away from her mother, panic spreading across the surface of her eyes. "What's going on?"

Beverly frowned. "I don't know." She rose to her feet and tapped a series of commands into the desk's terminal, initiating an audio feed to the bridge and its comm systems. She couldn't be there, but she would know what was happening. Other adults might want to shield their children from the stark knowledge of a battle, but she knew that not knowing would upset her children more, and here she could explain what was happening to them if they didn't understand. "I'm going to listen in on the bridge," she said.

Gracie nodded. "Okay."

The voices started to float down from the bridge, surrounding them all.

Worf's statement was first, touched by shock, an emotion rarely expressed by the stalwart Klingon. _"They have found a way to penetrate our shields."_

Will's command came next. _"Lock phasers and return fire!"_

Outside the windows, they watched as phaser fire streamed from the ship's phaser banks, lancing out at the Bird of Prey. But the beams were stopped by the other ship's shields, flashing as they harmlessly dissipated. The return fire came again from the Klingon ship, tearing at the _Enterprise_'s hull. From the bridge's comm, an explosion sounded. Then there was another command from Will. _"Deanna, take the helm. Get us out of orbit."_

Andrew didn't look away from the ship outside as he commented. "The helmsman must've been killed or seriously injured in that explosion," he said.

Guilt tugged at Beverly, she knew she should be up there on the bridge, healing that injured officer. But she belonged in two places right then and couldn't be in both and this one was far more important. The ship moved, leaving orbit, but the Klingon ship followed them, firing on them again and again while the _Enterprise_ was defenseless. Another jolt rocked them.

Data gave a damage report. _"Hull breach on decks thirty-one through thirty-five."_

There was another hit, more jolting. The lights around them flickered and the communications went in and out as the bridge officers struggled to find a solution, a way out of this battle alive.

_"Worf, that's an old Klingon ship. What do we know about it? Are there any weaknesses?"_

The ship was hit again as Worf struggled to reply to Will's question. _"It is a Class D-twelve Bird of Prey. They were retired from service because of defective plasma coils."_

Riker's thoughts were already turning, it was evident in his voice. _"Plasma coils. Is there any way we can use that to our advantage?"_

_"I do not see how. The plasma coil is part of their cloaking device—"_

Worf's reply was cut off by another explosion taking place on the bridge and an officer ordering a stabilizer to be put on a conduit.

_"Could we access the defective coil and trigger their cloak?"_ came Will's next question, directed at anyone who could answer.

It was Data who gave a reply, at first unsure. _"Perhaps."_

There was a pause, then Data spoke again, now enthusiastic. _"Yes! If we sent a low-level ionic pulse, it might reset the coil and engage the cloaking systems._"

Worf caught onto the android's idea. _"As their cloak begins to engage, their shields will drop."_

Decision made, Riker gave out orders. _"Right. And they'll be vulnerable for at least two seconds. Data, lock onto that plasma coil. Worf, prepare a spread of photon torpedoes. We'll have to hit them the instant they begin to cloak."_

_"Aye, sir."_

Will's next observation illustrated how this plan would be their final, last-ditch effort. _"We're only going to get one shot at this. Target their primary reactor. With any luck, their warp core should implode."_

There was a moment without words, only the sounds of the ship's engines, of people working, of machinery sparking in protest of the continued onslaught. The ship rolled and turned back to the planet, now facing the Bird of Prey instead of running from it.

Data gave his readiness report. _"I have accessed their coil frequency. Initiating ionic pulse—"_

He was cut off by another direct hit on the ship's battered hull.

Riker had had enough. _"Fire!"_

A spread of photon torpedos shot out of the _Enterprise _as the Klingon ship began to shimmer away behind its cloak. There was a pause as both the Bird of Prey and the torpedos disappeared from view, then the space outside was brilliantly lit by the implosion of the Klingon ship, completely destroying it, leaving pieces of its hull shimmering in the light from the Amargosa star.

Data's celebration came down from the bridge. _"Yes!"_

His enthusiasm was infectious. "We won!" shouted Gracie, jumping up and down.

From his spot next to the window, Andrew shook his head. "I don't think we have." His eyes were still grim as he watched the dust from the remains of the Bird of Prey drift by.

Beverly was struck by how very much her son had just sounded like his father, both in his outlook and even the very pitch and tone of his voice. At some point when she wasn't looking, her son had matured a great deal, and was really becoming a young man. He wasn't her little boy anymore, he wasn't even the youth who had stood beside his great-grandmother's grave, holding his little sister's hand, the cold staining his cheeks a rosy red. Backlit by the planet and star outside, she could see in his profile the man he would become. And she was proud of him.

The communications continued to be piped in: _"LaForge to Bridge. I've got a problem down here. The magnetic interlocks have been ruptured. I need to get the—"_

Geordi was interrupted by another explosion and the rushing sound of spewing gas. _"Coolant leak! Everybody out!" _

There were the sounds of people rushing to get away, the alarm from the emergency door as it closed on main engineering. Then came Geordi's next announcement. _"Bridge, we've got a new problem. We're about five minutes from a warp core breach. There's nothing I can do."_

Beverly closed her eyes, wishing that just once, her son could be entirely incorrect with one of his deep, mature observations.

Will gave the orders. _"Deanna, evacuate everyone into the saucer section. Data, prepare to separate the ship."_

Another alarm sounded over the entire ship, an alarm Beverly hadn't heard since the battle with the Borg cube years ago. Saucer separation, the alert telling everyone to get out of the battle section and into the saucer section. The doctor held her infant son tightly. At least her family was all here, except for her husband. But at least Jean-Luc was down on the planet already and not going to be on the ship when it crashed.

Geordi announced that everyone was out of the battle section.

_"One minute to warp core breach." _Data's announcement was echoed by the soft feminine voice of the computer.

Will gave the command for separation. _"Begin separation sequence. Full impulse power once we're clear."_

They could sense some movement as the ship separated, the shudder through the hull as the locking clamps disengaged and freed the saucer section from the aft section. "I can see it, I think," Andrew said, pressing his face on the transparent aluminum. "I think I can see the battle section."

Data confirmed it. _"Separation complete. Ten seconds to warp core breach."_

Troi executed the next set of commands._ "Engaging impulse engines."_

Infinitely slowly, the saucer section pulled away from the aft section. Then the warp core exploded, sending out a shockwave in all directions, one that the saucer section couldn't outrun. It struck the saucer section hard, sending it on its axis towards the planet.

_"Report!" _

A hint of hysteria raced through Troi's reply to Will. _"Helm controls are off-line!"_

Beverly reached out and grabbed a fistful of her daughter's shirt, pulling her in close. Turning towards the windows, where her son still stood, mesmerized, she saw what held him in such thrall—the planet below now rushing towards them at an impossible speed.

* * *

Jean-Luc Picard stood in front of the root, waiting for Soran to become distracted long enough for him to crawl through without being noticed. If he spoke, Soran would be looking in his direction, so he said nothing. The El Aurian finally checked one more thing on his panel, double-checked on his pocket watch, then switched the panel off using his control padd, the launcher and panel disappearing underneath the cloak. He then moved from that platform and headed for the higher parts of the scaffolding. Before he started climbing, he looked towards Picard. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Captain, I have an appointment with eternity and I don't want to be late." That ghostly smile had returned and it went with Soran as he started up towards the top of the jutting rock. 

For a moment, Picard watched him, then he sprang into action by dropping onto his back and beginning to wriggle underneath the root. It wasn't an easy task, he hadn't to do this type of back crawl since his early days in cadet combat training. The opening was very small and touching the forcefield would fire off nerve endings he didn't want to disturb. He got his head and shoulders through, then made a mistake and touched part of the field. It crackled violently around him, a few energy spikes stabbing at his shoulders, jabs of fire.

Soran turned around at the noise.

The two of them made eye contact, both of them swearing in their native languages. Soran drew a disruptor, took aim, and fired in Picard's direction.

The bolt arced towards him and Picard crawled, beating his record from his cadet days, and managed to roll away just head of the impact of the disruptor fire. The bolt sent feet of dirt, rocks, and rubble into the air and then they rained on the ground around the impact zone. In the midst of it, the captain crawled again, hiding underneath the lowest platform. He knew Soran hadn't seen him. He heard some scuffling as Soran looked around, knowing he would see the swath of destruction and decide that Picard had been vaporized.

Listening to Soran, the captain noticed the sky changing colors, and the faint image of the energy ribbon came into view as it began its journey into the planet's atmosphere.

It was beautiful.

* * *

Beverly held Gracie in one arm and Gabriel in the other as the ship began to shake and roll violently in protest of its unannounced entry into a planet's atmosphere. Outside the windows, the ground was getting closer. 

Amazingly, the communication link to the bridge had held together. Data kept a running commentary on his actions. _"I have rerouted auxiliary power to the lateral thrusters. I'm attempting to level our descent—"_

Will interrupted him. _"All hands, brace for impact!" _

The ship lurched again and the link went dead.

Andrew stood at the windows, still not moving. "No shit," he said in response to Will's command, their landing area coming into view, the heart of a lush rainforest rushing up to greet them.

Beverly started to panic. Already, her hands were full with her two smaller children, wedging them and herself against the wall. She couldn't reach Andrew. "Andrew! Get away from the windows! Get away!"

But Andrew was caught by the view in front of him, not comprehending his own mortality. "This is amazing, I can see the trees now—"

"Andrew Picard! Move away from those windows _now_!"

The instinctual mother-pitch to her voice snapped her son back to reality and he looked over at her. "Right, sorry," he said, and started away from the windows and towards the relative safety of the interior walls.

But it was too late. Unable to resist the heat and pressure of the uncontrolled descent, the transparent aluminum windows blew inward, the force of the wind behind them throwing Andrew face-first to the ground. He didn't move. His eyes were closed and there was a lump and a laceration on his temple from where a piece of aluminum had hit him.

He wasn't moving. Beverly didn't know if he was alive and merely unconscious or if he were dead.

But he wasn't moving. Her son wasn't moving and she couldn't do anything, she had to stay with the two children she had in her arms, she could only watch as he continued to remain still.

Gracie struggled against Beverly's arm that held her from running to Andrew. She wouldn't lose another one. She had Gracie safely in her arms, she couldn't let her go, not even to check on Andrew. Finally, Gracie screamed for her brother.

And he didn't move.

Beverly cried for her son.

* * *

Jean-Luc Picard stealthily made his way up the scaffolding, keeping just beyond Soran's line of sight, taking a different route and getting ahead of the scientist. Once he'd gotten into a stable position, he went found Soran and on seeing his eyes, kicked him in the face with a booted foot. 

Soran dropped a few rungs but didn't fall, only dropping his control padd, sending it clattering down the scaffolding. He hauled himself back up and went after the Starfleet captain, grabbing the captain's ankle with superior strength, then jerked Picard's feet out from under him, sending him tumbling down a few levels of scaffolding, landing with a sickening thud on the metal plating.

Regaining the breath that had been knocked out of him, Picard saw the energy ribbon rushing closer, a bizarre snake of color undulating across the deep blue sky. A vicious kick to his side brought him back and he rolled away from the impact, towards the launcher's platform just below. He could see Soran's control padd on the ground near the lowest platform. Out of Soran's reach, Picard came out of his roll and onto his feet and set to running towards the launcher, snatching up the control padd on the way.

He was nearly sent back to the ground as a thunderous roar sounded and the probe shot into the sky and towards the Veridian star. Then everything was quiet and two pairs of eyes watched as the probe streaked out of view towards the distant sun.

_I've failed._

Jean-Luc Picard knew it. He'd failed. They would all be destroyed now, two hundred and thirty million people. As if matching his darkening thoughts, the sun began to darken, collapse, and then winked out. Night fell. Everything went dark, the plateau now only lit by the strange light of the ribbon rushing towards it. The captain didn't notice the elation on Soran's face, he didn't notice Soran run up to the top of the jutting rock to greet the Nexus with open, welcoming arms.

The wind bit at the captain's face, whipped up by the motion of the ribbon. He saw it now, a torrent of sound and light, reaching for him. He tried to back away, to run, but there was nowhere to go. The rock wall was hard against his back and he was trapped. As a passing thought, he made note that Soran wouldn't have had to climb to the top of the rock after all, the Nexus would make a sweep across the entire side of the planet.

The light engulfed him, the sound so pervading that it filled his ears to the point of silence. Everything was dark.

He knew he should be witnessing something, even as he fell into the darkness. It brushed the corner of his mind. A family, a starship, a planet, a wave of destruction. They would all be gone.

But he didn't see it. It was dark.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

The silence enveloped Jean-Luc Picard in a warm, comforting blanket. The quiet gave him a sensation of contentment, emotions at peace. Slowly, he opened his eyes and found that even though they were open, it was still dark. Then even more slowly, his eyes grew used to the dark and found a slim crack of light ahead. Of course, it was full light outside, the barn would be pitch black when you first stepped inside. The nearby chuffing of horses confirmed his location and then he remembered the errand he'd been sent on.

"Allie," he said.

No answer.

"Natalie," he said, adding a measure of command to his voice this time around.

"Over here, Papa," she replied, slightly exasperated.

He smiled and walked over. She'd always called him that, ever since she'd spoken her first words. He'd assumed she would grow out of it, but she never had. None of the children had. "There's a young man waiting for you, you know. He's all dressed up and he's complaining he has no bride," he said when he caught sight of her.

Allie had yet to change her own clothing to something more suitable for her own wedding. Instead, she wore her work clothing and was busy scanning one of the mares with a tricorder in one hand, while the other rested on the horse's head, comforting her. She flashed him a grin when she saw him, telling him without words that her exasperation wasn't anything serious. "It isn't my fault that Molly got her innards twisted up," she said, frowning at the readout.

He crossed his arms. Allie, like any other veterinarian, had a partner who could cover for her in case something like this came up. Of course, when the time came to relinquish the care of her own animals, Allie had been loathe to let anyone else care for them except for herself. "It's your fault that Michael's innards are," he said in slight admonishment.

She gave him another grin in reply, using the one she knew would render him unable to do anything except grant her request. "I'll see to that once I'm done here," she said.

Picard raised an eyebrow. "So you're saying that your horses are more important to you than Michael."

"He knew that much was true when he asked me to marry him."

"Then I can't fathom why he would still ask after hearing that from you," he said.

Her answer was to throw a clod of dirt at him. Picard stepped aside just in time and the clod of dirt sailed past him and hit Andrew square in the chest as the young man strode into the barn. Andrew frowned as he looked down at his uniform, trying to brush off the large spot of dirt. His actions only served to ground the dirt further into the white jacket. "Damn. I've only got one dress uniform." He looked up and fixed a glare on Picard. "What did you say to her?"

"I don't see why I'm the one for immediate blame. Maybe she knew you were walking inside and decided she wanted to pick a fight with you for some reason."

"And maybe you should have your head examined," Andrew said. "She knows I've only got one dress uniform and I'm supposed to be wearing it for this wedding, per orders of the _bride_." His last phrase was directed at his sister, who still knelt next to the ailing horse.

"Actually, I never gave any thought as to the number of uniforms you have," Allie replied. A medical instrument had made its way to her hand and she continued to work on the horse.

"Well, you should have. What am I supposed to do now?" He'd walked over to stand next to where his sister was working. "Are you even going to marry him anyway? If you're not, I can go toss him out. I don't mind."

Allie handed him a scanner. "Hold this."

Andrew frowned and did as he was told.

"First off, as for your uniform, you can just go to the house and throw it in the cleaner. I'll be at least another twenty minutes with Molly. Second, yes, I'm going to marry him as soon as I'm done here. Third, I thought you liked Michael." She peered up at him, eyebrow raised.

"I like him just fine," said Andrew, now shrugging off his outer jacket. "Just not well enough to marry my twin sister."

"Perhaps you should have said something sooner," Picard said, interjecting between the two of them before they got into another one of their arguments. As good natured as they tended to be, they could also be long, drawn-out affairs.

Andrew opened his mouth to answer, but Allie beat him in getting the answer out. "He did say something sooner. Several things sooner. I won't repeat the sort of language he used, either."

The captain did his best to keep a straight face, but failed miserably. He was feeling an almost overwhelming sense of joy and contentment and that feeling didn't help at all in attempting to hide his amusement.

Andrew glared at him. "It's not funny. She didn't take me seriously."

"Only because it wouldn't matter who I decided to marry, they wouldn't be good enough for you," Allie said.

"Only because it's true," Andrew said, then looked to his father for backup.

Picard didn't get a chance to offer his opinion, as Allie knew what her brother would do. "And don't you go trying to get Papa to say anything to support you, either," she said. "He has the same opinion you do. As a matter of fact, so does Gabriel. And Rene. And Uncle Robert...you know, I think it's got something to do with the men in this family. I thought we'd evolved past things like being overprotective of your female relatives."

"I'm not being overprotective," said Andrew.

"Because I'm not letting you, that's why," said Allie, turning to look at him. "Why are you still here? Why aren't you in the house and getting that jacket cleaned? So help me, if I have you wait for _you_—"

"If I have to wait for you? How is that fair? You're the one already holding up the entire production. In fact, if you hadn't been holding it up, then I wouldn't have had to walk in here, and I wouldn't have gotten hit by the dirt _you_ threw."

"I don't see why you came in here anyway, Papa had already come in—"

"Because I told him to," Beverly said, stepping into the barn. "Your father was taking too long in getting you out there." She pointed to Andrew. "You. Go up to the house and get that jacket cleaned." Andrew ducked out of the barn quickly, avoiding any further trouble with his mother. Then she pointed to Picard. "And you. Come with me and leave our daughter alone so she can finish her work." The doctor extended a hand towards him.

He took it, but grumbled even as he followed her outside and towards the house. "She shouldn't have started the work in the first place, that's what," he said.

Beverly squeezed his hand and gave him a warm smile. "Jean-Luc, it's her day. She can do whatever she wants with it."

They walked through the front door. Marie glared at them, hands on her hips. "Where is she?"

"In the barn, where she was in the first place," replied Jean-Luc.

"She's coming," Beverly said.

The footsteps of someone running sounded on the porch and then Allie burst through the door.

"And there she is," Beverly finished.

Marie grabbed her niece by the arm and dragged her into the study to finish changing. Then the door opened and Allie was pushed back out and pointed up the stairs. "She's even more dirty than her brother," Marie said, glaring up at Allie's retreating form.

"Gabriel?" asked Picard. "Has he gotten into something?" Whenever the family returned to the vineyard, the ten-year-old boy was more often muddy and grass-stained than not. His mother and aunt ended up constantly chucking him into the bathtub and Allie had threatened her younger brother with death if he got his clothes muddy on her day.

"Oh, no. He's the best behaved of the lot, I think," said Marie.

"It's not my fault," Andrew said, exiting the laundry room and putting his once again clean uniform jacket back on. "Besides, Allie not only threatened _him_, but also put Gracie in charge of watching him and threatened _her_ with death if he got dirty."

Allie wasn't long upstairs and Beverly and Marie had shooed Andrew away so he and his sister would stop arguing. Once Allie was dressed and ready, her mother and aunt went outside to make sure everyone else, who'd been waiting for nearly two hours, was ready yet again.

"You have a silly grin on your face," Allie said, walking over to him.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied. She was right, but he wasn't going to acknowledge it. A sparkle caught his eye, the pendant to a silver necklace Allie wore. The pendant itself was tiny and looked as if it were made of glass and held a tiny light in the center, reflecting outward like a star.

Allie smiled at him when she noticed him studying it. "I thought I'd wear it," she said. "Since you gave it to me and all."

"So I did." He'd gotten it for her on one of his first missions away from his family, she had been only four years old. She'd loved it and said it reminded her of her papa and the stars. Before he'd even been away from them for the first extended period of time, he'd known he would want to eventually captain a ship that allowed families on board. He'd managed to get a teaching assignment at the Academy after the _Stargazer_ court-martial and had never regretted it—marrying Beverly and being able to stay with her throughout the pregnancy, see the twins born, watch as Wesley became an excellent older brother, watched as Allie and Andrew said their first words, took their first steps, saw their first stars. The moment he'd gotten wind of the concept for Galaxy class starships, he'd contacted Starfleet Headquarters and gotten the facts. When they informed him that they were in fact constructing a Galaxy class ship, he'd put in for a captaincy right then and there.

Being away from them, even as a starship captain, wasn't something he wanted to do for long. He'd always assumed a ship would be enough for him, but he'd discovered that he had been wrong, and had no idea how Jack had coped being away from Beverly and Wesley when he was alive. When he'd been given the assignment to command the very first Galaxy class ship, the fleet's flagship, he'd been thrilled. Andrew and Wesley had also been beside themselves with excitement, for the first time being able to go out into the stars and stay with their entire family when they did.

Someone nudged him with a well-placed elbow. "What are you thinking about?" Allie asked.

He turned to her. "Farpoint," he said.

* * *

Andrew Picard couldn't help but gawk at the dazzling display of the titanium and glass architecture in the foyer of Farpoint Station. Allie gave him a good nudge. "Your mouth is hanging open," she said. 

"Isn't," he said.

Allie had barely opened her mouth to reply when their mother glanced at them. "Don't you two even think about starting."

Andrew scowled as Allie gave him a bright smile at getting him in trouble so easily. Beverly held her hand out to Allie and had the nine-year-old girl walk beside her rather than next to her brother. Wesley dropped back a bit to walk next to Andrew and keep him from wandering off. "We'll be on the ship soon," Wesley said.

"Yup," said Andrew. They'd been traveling for two weeks to catch up with their father's ship, a brand new ship they could all live on, and a ship that Wesley wouldn't shut up about. He couldn't wait to really see how all the ship's systems worked and to maybe play with the technology.

"I can't wait to see Engineering. And the bridge, too."

"I don't think Papa will let you," Andrew said. "I really don't think he'd want you messing with the guts of his ship. I've seen what you've done with tricorders and don't think he doesn't know about the results of those little experiments."

Wes rolled his eyes. "I always put them back together."

"Go ahead. Ask Mom about that. You might've put them back together, but they didn't always work."

"They worked _better_."

"Well, I think the ship works just fine on its own right now, without any modifications by you."

"Maybe he'll be nice to me," Wesley said. "After all, my—"

"Wes, you can't play that 'my dad died under your command' card anymore. It's old. You need to come up with something new."

Wesley made a face at Andrew, not one of hurt, but of exasperation, followed quickly by faint amusement.

Ahead of them, Allie burst out laughing at Andrew's comment, while Beverly turned around to fix a glare on her younger son. "Andrew!" she said, her tone sharp.

"What?" he asked, giving her a wide-eyed look.

Her look of exasperation didn't shift to humor, it only stayed exasperated. Andrew realized he might have gone a step too far and was beginning to think he might spend his first week on the ship grounded when someone called out from behind them.

"Dr. Picard!"

The doctor acted as if she hadn't noticed, but all three of her children had seen her eyes flick quickly in the direction of the shout. So all three of them, without exchanging a word, slowed to a halt to wait as the officer hurried to catch up with them. "Mom, it's Commander Riker," Wesley said.

Riker caught up with them in time to hear the comment. "And hello to you, too, Wes," he said. "Enjoying Farpoint Station?"

"Yes, sir," he replied.

The commander grinned and then looked at Beverly. "Saw you and thought I'd join your stroll, if I may."

"Actually, we were about to do some shopping," she replied, practically a dismissal of the first officer.

Riker raised his eyebrow. "I've been meaning to visit the mall myself. If I'm welcome?"

"Of course," came the doctor's short reply as she resumed her walk towards the mall area. The amount of wares peddled inside, in various booths in a large open area, was almost overwhelming in number.

Andrew frowned, not liking how short his mother was being with the commander, who seemed like a perfectly nice guy. He decided to speak up, turning to look at the tall man. "If you're wondering about Mom, Commander, it's not that she's mean or anything. She's just shy around men she doesn't know."

Beverly's reaction to Andrew's latest comment was even more sharp and startled than before. "_Andrew_," she said, halting and turning to glare at him.

Riker, meanwhile, couldn't suppress his grin.

Andrew gave his mother a slight shrug, looking entirely unrepentant. He'd already accepted the fact that he'd be grounded for at least the first week. But the reaction he'd gotten was worth it, and if she decided to be nice to the first officer, it would be even more worth it.

"Like Mom's going to believe you didn't know what you were saying," Allie told him, dropping back to walk next to him again.

"I didn't try and say that I didn't in the first place," he said.

Beverly quickly stepped between the two of them as she addressed Riker. "What I think my son was trying to say is that he'd like us to be friends."

"I'm willing if you are, Doctor," said Will. "Shall we start over?" He offered his hand. "Commander Will Riker, first officer."

She accepted it and shook his hand. "Dr. Beverly Picard, Chief Medical Officer."

"And although we're not officially part of the _Enterprise_ yet, I thought there might be something useful we could do while we wait."

Continuing to walk, Beverly arched an eyebrow. "How and what, Commander?" she asked.

At first, Andrew had been interested in the adults' conversation, but his interest quickly waned as Riker started discussing things about fruit randomly appearing in bowls in some man's office. Then his mother was looking at bolts of cloth apparently having something to do with costumes she was thinking of making if she could get an acting group started up on the ship. At least, that's what Allie had told him when he asked. Now entirely bored, he noticed another vendor across the way, one that had more interesting wares to peddle than cloth. He quickly glanced at his mother and saw that between listening to Riker and telling the Bandi merchant that the bit of clothing she was holding would be nice in emerald green, she would be distracted enough not to notice him wander off.

Before he was a step away from her, she placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him back around. Not distracted enough, and now he was drawn back into listening in on the adults.

"I'm sure, Commander, there are reasons for a young first officer to want to demonstrate his efficiency, his astuteness, and his energy to his new captain," Beverly said. "But since my duties and interests are outside the command structure..." she paused when the Bandi merchant handed her exactly what she'd asked for when examining the fabric.

"Isn't it interesting that they happened to have exactly what you wanted?" Riker asked.

The doctor threw him a look, put the bolt back down, and started walking out of the mall area. Andrew could tell by her face that now she was starting to take the other Starfleet officer's observations seriously. He saw it often enough, all three of them did, especially lately. Some officers thought they could get special favors or extra recognition from Captain Picard if they were in good graces with his wife. Except, they were wrong, every time, to assume so. Their mother had a career separate from their father's and they didn't think that once had any officer succeeded in winning any approval from one through the other. At first, it'd seemed that was the direction Will Riker had been heading in, but now it seemed they'd been wrong to assume his intent.

Riker smiled at Beverly. "As you were saying, Doctor?" he asked.

She sighed. "I was accusing you of inventing work in order to curry favor with your new captain. I apologize," she said. She paused and glanced back at the mall. "Maybe this is something Jean-Luc will want to look into."

The surprised expression on Riker's face supported Andrew's new assumption that Riker hadn't thought to curry favor from their father through their mother at all.

Allie had been on a similar train of thought. "You forgot, didn't you, Commander?" she asked, smiling at him.

Andrew looked over at her and saw that she'd chosen to wear her favorite necklace, the one their father had gotten for her when they were only four. It got Andrew's attention every time she wore it, with the tiny light in that glass teardrop, as if she had a star all her own. Then he realized that she was looking at him with an expression on her face that he didn't recognize.

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be," she said.

He frowned. "What do you mean?" Around them, things had started to fade out, as if they were leaving and entering a place where only the two of them existed.

Allie shared his frowned. "It's just different. This isn't right," she said.

"I don't understand," he said, closing his eyes to stave off a dizzy spell caused by the fading scenery. When he opened them, everything was back to normal. And as quickly as the moment had occurred, it passed from his mind, and he completely forgot about it as he continued to listen to his mother and the first officer speak.

* * *

Allie Picard heard two senior officers speaking on the other end of the holodeck. 

"Do you hear them?" her twin brother asked.

"Yeah," she said, trying to see through the foliage. The ability of the holodecks on this new ship were already amazing to her, and they had only seen a few rocks, leaves, and a small stream. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad being on the ship and away from Earth if she had this pretend dirt around. "Let's go over."

"Race you," Andrew said, already bolting away before he finished the question.

She wasn't far behind, but pulled up short when she heard Commander Riker shout. "Be careful! That rock is loose!"

The commander's words were punctuated with a splash, and Allie came into view of her brother just in time to see him falling into the stream they'd crossed earlier. As she watched, trying to keep a straight face, Lieutenant Commander Data reached in and pulled Andrew out of the water with one hand and held him there.

Andrew didn't say anything. Instead, he glared at Data.

"Isn't this program great, Commander?" Allie asked, gracefully hopping from rock to rock to the other side of the river. "Wesley said there's thousands of them." She turned to Data. "Thank you for rescuing my brother."

"He didn't rescue me," Andrew said, his feet dangling.

"On the contrary," said Data, "Humans can drown in as little as two inches of water."

"I wasn't going to drown in two inches of water! I can swim!" Andrew protested. "And would you please put me down?"

Data complied.

Allie burst out laughing and left it to Commander Riker to introduce them to the second officer.

"Commander Data, let me introduce you to Andrew and Allie Picard."

Recovering her composure, Allie remembered her manners and shook Data's hand. "Nice to meet you," she said.

Andrew glared at the adults. Allie knew that her twin hated anything that remotely connected to another person having to take care of him, rescuing in particular. She elbowed him. "Andrew. Be _nice_."

After he scowled at her, he recalled his manners. "Nice to meet you," he said, looking at Data, his tone sullen. "But you didn't rescue me. I can swim perfectly well."

Data opened his mouth to argue, but Riker held up his hand. "I suggest you drop it, Mr. Data."

The android gave Riker a perplexed look. "May I ask why, sir?"

Will started walking towards the holodeck exit and the rest of the group followed. "Our Mr. Picard has a bit of a stubborn side," he said.

Allie snorted, wondering if their mother had already spoken to Will Riker about Andrew. Then again, he'd said enough in that fifteen minutes on Farpoint alone to have anyone understand how he thought.

"I _heard_ that," Andrew said.

"You were meant to," Riker replied.

"Serves you right," Allie said, stepping through the exit as the doors opened. As it happened, their father was walking by with another senior officer. They'd yet to see him since they'd boarded the ship due to the difficulties the ship had encountered on their way to Farpoint. In fact, it had been over a month since they'd seen him last. And judging by the look the captain was giving her brother, his gray eyes tracking from Andrew's sodden clothing dripping on the deck that was muddied by his shoes tracking all over it, he wasn't too terribly thrilled to see his son at the moment.

"Commander Data has agreed to join my away team, Captain," Riker said.

"Very good," said Picard, not looking away from Andrew. When he spoke again, it was directed towards the boy. "Perhaps you should get something to wipe up that mess," he said.

Andrew scowled. "It's not my fault I fell into the water. The rock was loose."

"He nearly drowned," Allie filled in for him when he left off that important part of his story.

He glared at her. "I did not," he said.

"Andrew." The tone of their father's voice got Andrew to snap right back around to look at him. Allie began to wonder if their father was more irritated than she'd assumed. "I want you to find a way to get that water cleaned up, then I want you straight back in our quarters and changed into dry clothing. You are not to leave unless your mother or I tell you otherwise. I heard about the comments you made on the station."

Andrew's scowl got deeper, but he didn't argue.

The captain nodded. "Good."

Allie watched him as he strode away with the senior officers, then grinned when she saw him look back at her and wink. He wasn't really mad after all.

The memory faded and Allie glanced over at her father. "You know, Mom hated it when you acted like that."

He raised his eyebrows. "Like what?"

"You could go for days without getting frustrated with us at all, even when Andrew and I argued constantly over the stupidest little things, while she would be going crazy."

He smiled. "It's only because I'd been away from you two long enough that I'd forgotten how obnoxious it could get when you got going."

The door opened and Beverly poked her head in. "Come on," she said.

Allie crooked her arm and Picard took it, leading her towards the aisle waiting outside. As they passed through the doors, Allie shared a warm smile with her mother and could see the tears already forming in her mother's blue eyes. Then those eyes trailed to Allie's pendant, as everyone's eyes always seemed to do whenever she wore it. Looking at it herself, she saw that the light inside, the tiny star, it seemed to pulsate, something it had never done before.

A thought struck her. _This isn't the way it's supposed to be_.

* * *

Beverly Picard caught Jean-Luc's eyes across the room and shared a smile with him. His eyes were dancing at all of them being home at once, her eyes danced for the same reason. It had happened by chance, Wesley's ship having been assigned to the same sector to support the _Enterprise_ for a survey mission, Andrew on leave from the Academy and Allie deciding to ride along with him from Earth to the ship. All of them hadn't been together since the harvest over a year before. Jean-Luc had brought out one of the first bottles of the wine produced from that harvest and they'd chatted for hours. 

They had at least moved away from the dining table to the sofa and armchairs, Gracie entertaining Gabriel on the floor until he'd gone to his father to be held. The others had started talking softly as their younger brother's eyes drooped and then stayed shut. Placing her wine glass on a side table, she got up, gently took the one-year-old from her husband, and carried him to his room. She smoothed out his rusty colored hair and placed a kiss on his forehead as he settled down. She stayed standing there, watching him as he slept, her hand remaining on his head, feeling the impossibly soft hair. The smile came out on its own, she couldn't help it. The entire night, she'd felt like this.

Then her chest started tightening up, wrapping up like it did before a good cry, only she wasn't sad. She had nothing to be sad about, all of them were safe and healthy and here, her littlest one right next to her, the others just in the next room. But there it was, that tightness, that near-panic.

She felt an arm wrap around her waist, strong and comforting. "Hey," Jean-Luc said. "You all right?"

And then the feeling was gone, nothing of it remaining, only the warmth she'd felt before, the contentedness of love and being loved. Sometimes, she mused, it was just that simple. "I'm fine now," she said.

In answer, he placed a soft kiss on her neck.

"Hey, none of that," Allie said from the doorway. She held a necklace of hers in her hand. "I wanted you to see this."

"What about it?" Beverly asked.

Allie bit her lip as she composed her thoughts. "Something's wrong with it. It's not right somehow." She frowned. "This doesn't feel right."

The tightness came back to the doctor's chest, the embrace of sadness before the start of tears. She bit her own lip.

Allie glanced up from her pendant and made eye contact with her mother, blue to blue. "Things will be okay," she said.

The warmth came back and they shared a smile, pendant forgotten.

* * *

Jean-Luc Picard reflexively smiled back when Allie shot him a dazzling smile from the edge of the dance floor. Then again, her necklace caught his eye, and an odd thing happened—the star in the middle suddenly went out and it radiated a shimmering light that expanded to the edges of the teardrop. 

_It looks like a star going out. _

He frowned. He'd been surrounded by a melody of joy and the star going out had struck a discordant note, rudely jerking him from his contentment. He found himself retreating to the study indoors, not wanting to spread his mood to the rest of the gatherers. The quiet of the study would allow him to successfully push it away, the comfort of the walls, adorned with various framed photographs of family members. Marie had recently put up a photo of Andrew and Allie with Gracie, making snow angels at her behest when they had all been smaller. The photograph brought a welcome smile to his face and the discordant note faded, replaced by the harmony of before.

Then he saw a reflection in the windowpane, someone entering the study. He turned to face her. "Felisa," he said.

Her green eyes held a depth of knowledge possessed by only the wisest of people. But her eyes also reminded him of something else, and the awful note came back, and an image of an infant passed through his mind, a son with green eyes, a son whom he didn't know well enough yet, even as he knew his green-eyed son was outside right at that moment, dancing with his older sister. Something wasn't right.

"No, this can't be right," he said. The woman standing in front of him, he had actually never met her, she wasn't even supposed to be alive. She had died, he remembered the funeral in the depth of the Caldos winter. "This isn't real."

Around him, things began to fade.

Felisa gave him a slight smile. "It's as real as you want it to be," she said.

He didn't smile in return, instead, the frown came back. "What's going on? Where am I?"

"You're in the Nexus," she said, as if he should have known already.

He glanced around. "This is the Nexus?"

She nodded. "For you. This is where you wanted to be."

"But I never knew them when they were small and I remember, I remember all of it. And Allie..." he trailed off as the room around him filled with life again.

Beverly had poked her head in the door, her beautiful face marred by a concerned look. "Is there something wrong, Jean-Luc?" she asked, stepping inside.

He gave her a smile of reassurance. "I'm fine."

"Well, aren't you coming?" The doctor extended a hand and he took it, following her back into the main living area of the vineyard home.

As if he were in a trance, the scene drew him back in, wrapped him up in its warmth. His arm wound around Beverly's waist and they shared knowing smiles, proud smiles, as their youngest son stepped forward and asked his mother to dance. Normally, Gabriel would flee at the slightest hint of dancing, but the mood permeating the event had chased away that dislike of his.

The melody of Beverly's laughter at a comment from Gabriel caused him to smile yet again.

"Will you dance with me, Papa?"

The captain turned and Allie was in front of him, her elegant hand extended towards him, waiting. He couldn't refuse her. But once he took her hand, it wasn't light that caught his eye, it was the lack of it. Inside the pendant she wore, the light had gone out, the teardrop had gone entirely dark.

All the harmony had gone, leaving only the sudden, jarring discordant notes. Picard glanced back at the house and saw Felisa standing just outside the front door as if she were waiting for him. Then he knew everything that wasn't supposed to be. The wonderful young woman whose hand he held so gently, she wasn't supposed to be here. Neither was the older woman standing inside the doorway, watching them. The contentment that had wrapped around him so comfortingly became tight, constricting his chest, bringing back a feeling he'd not had since his recovery after the Borg—the tightness in his chest, as if everything were caving in, that moment just before he would start to cry. And as much as he wanted, he couldn't wish the memories away. The magic had been stolen by reality.

Of their own accord, his eyes had drifted shut. When he opened them, he found Allie looking at him intently, concern warming her blue eyes. A slight frown pulled at the corners of mouth. She didn't let go of his hand when she asked her question. "It's not supposed to be this way, is it?"

* * *

Allie couldn't take it anymore, the happiness around her felt entirely wrong, so wrong that it wasn't happiness anymore, it had been twisted into something dark. She glanced down at the pendant and saw the connection there. This was all something as dark as the teardrop had become. Standing in front of her, her father refused to answer her question. So she rephrased it, making the same statement she knew she'd made over and over, in other moments like this, wherever they all were. "I'm not supposed to be here," she said. "Something's wrong." 

Picard wouldn't meet her eyes. "Go on without me," he said, beginning to drift back towards the house, attempting to let go of her hand.

She didn't let go. "Tell me what's wrong."

His jaw worked, his eyes looked everywhere but directly at her.

Then she suddenly stood up straight, nearly jerking her hand out of her father's. _I died. I'm not supposed to exist anymore, yet here I am, existing in this...place_. "Where are we?" she asked.

It was Nana who answered, walking over from the doorway. Around the three of them, the celebration faded, the scene fading out, shadows on a screen, leaving only the small group behind. "We're in the Nexus," she said.

Allie frowned as she looked at her great-grandmother. "But I'm dead...and so are you." She turned to the captain and put her hands on his shoulders, gripping him hard. "What's happened?"

Slowly, tripping over his descriptions, he told her the story of what had brought them all here. As he spoke, the story made itself known in her mind, and she knew all of what had happened before he'd even finished. A look back at Nana told her that the same went for her. She needed to sit down. A bench appeared near them and she made use of it, going over the number in her head. Two hundred and thirty million people. Two hundred and thirty million people and the only faces she could see were the ones whom she loved...her twin brother, her sister, her father, her mother, her infant brother. Then there was everyone on the _Enterprise_...and two hundred and thirty million other people after that.

Allie got to her feet. "If you don't go back, they'll all die."

"I can't go back," he said.

"You have to. You haven't got a choice."

The frustration evident in even this dream of his being ripped away and sodden by reality flared in his eyes when he glared at her. "Natalie, I don't understand how you expect me to _get_ back to anywhere."

Allie's own frustration flared in mirror to her father's, but she turned to Felisa instead. "Time has no meaning here, isn't that what you said?"

She nodded. "Yes," she said, very softly, then looking away from Allie and at Jean-Luc. "Where would you like to go? You can go anywhere, anytime. You can leave the Nexus if you want, going anywhere, but that's the only time. Once you've gone, you're gone, and the Nexus is gone. All of this, gone. So what would you like to do, Captain?"

"He'd like to go back, that's what," Allie said, answering for him. "He'd like to go back and stop Soran, he knows right where that hole in the forcefield is now, he can head straight for it and stop him from launching that probe."

His reply shocked her. "No," he said, the anger gone, leaving only a scratched, weakened voice. "You wouldn't be there."

"I'm not _here_, either," she said. "None of this, none of it is real. All the memories we have of growing up as a family, of being on the _Enterprise_ since day one, they're all false. Shadows of what-could-have-been brought out into full daylight when they should have stayed slinking around in the far recesses of our minds. You never stayed that night with Mom. She never told you about us sooner. You didn't see us born. Andrew and I never stepped foot on Farpoint Station. We never knew Will Riker when he didn't have a beard. Wesley never graduated from Starfleet Academy." She paused, taking a quick breath. "And I will never get married. I will never have children. I will never see my brothers or sister grow up. I will never see you and Mom grow old and stupidly happy together. I will never be there for Gabriel as he grows up. He'll never know me beyond a few photographs and all the stories everyone could tell. You have to face the reality that my life is gone and nothing can change that. I'm gone."

"No," he said, a rasp.

Allie dropped back to the bench. "Maybe this is why I died, so I could be here and talk sense into you. I've always been that way, haven't I? In this dream of yours, in what Andrew and Mom have dreamed here, and in the life we did have on the ship and in France, before I died. It seems like everywhere, in every time, this is what I do. So now you know what you have to do. You have to go back. You haven't got any other choice because it isn't who you are _not_ to go."

He didn't say anything.

She wanted to shout at him, to yell, but when she tried to do so, the voice that came out was an even more faint rasp than her father's. "Jean-Luc Picard, don't you _dare_ make my death meaningless," she said. Then it appeared on her face, a crooked half-smile through tears that refused to fall, that humor she and her twin would so often interject with serious conversations. "I couldn't live with it."

Her father's laugh was choked by his sadness, a sharp intake of breath at the indignity of laughing in such a moment. But it was their way. His hand reached out and traced the contours of her face, memorizing it by touch. "I don't want to leave you," he said.

"I've already left you," she replied, taking his hand, kissing it, then returning it to him. "Please don't leave the rest of them."

She knew, seeing his eyes, and that light that had sparked in them, that he'd decided to go back. A wry comment made them twinkle for a moment. "If I didn't go back and save those people, you would give me hell for all eternity."

"Longer," she said, giving her own choked laugh, not bothering to wipe the tears away as they fell on her lap. "But they need you. Not just those two hundred and thirty million people, who need you so that they can stay alive. But Mom, Andrew, Gracie, Gabriel...they need you to live. Gabriel needs someone to tell him stories about me and how impossible I was. Gracie needs her Papa to show her that it's okay to cry. Andrew needs you to make sure that he knows he's never alone, even if he feels like he's the only person in the universe." She halted and waited for him to look directly at her and not look away before she continued. "And Mom needs you. You both need each other so you can stop hiding behind fear and anger and guilt, so you can both grow old and stupidly happy together. I can't be there for it, but the rest of you can."

Allie reached behind her neck and unclasped the necklace. Then she placed it carefully in the captain's hand, folding his fingers over it. "This was a gift," she said. "A gift you'll never forget, a gift those two hundred and thirty million people won't even know about, a gift from you to the rest of our family, all of these memories. This feeling here."

"I'm going back," he said, the knuckles on the finger holding the necklace white.

"I know," she said, rising to her feet again, placing a kiss on the top of his head. "It's why I love you."

Then he was gone.

And so was she.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Squinting in the harsh sunlight from a star he was going to try and keep from being destroyed at the whim of a madman, Picard searched for Soran. With how bright it was, he knew he'd have to look for a silhouette, to ignore the sounds of the wind shifting dust around him, the tittering of animals that had yet to be catalogued, and focus only on finding Soran.

Then he saw him. Soran stepped out from the shadow under a nearby bit of scaffolding, his pocketwatch in his hand, his eyes studying it. As if he'd just noticed the captain's appearance, Soran snapped shut the watch's cover and it disappeared in his jacket as he began to study Picard as calmly and intently as he had his watch.

Picard studied him in return, doing his best not to look at the arch. There would be no verbal measures of reasoning this time, Soran was obviously quite beyond that as the previous experience had taught him.

"You must think me quite the madman," Soran said, breaking the silence for him.

He wasn't certain that he thought Soran a madman any longer. While the scientist had certainly become twisted, it had been the forces of incredibly strong emotions that had done the twisting, not any sort of mental imbalance or sociopathic tendencies. The man obviously experienced guilt or he wouldn't have been so emotionally warped after his experience in the first place. If he felt no guilt about his unfulfilled promise to his family, he wouldn't sought so forcefully to keep it. But it wasn't the guilt that drove him the most—it was the love he had for them, that need to get back to them, it had become overwhelming in its force and is it grew, it had become unstable, an impossibly tall tree without a root system deep enough to support it. So it had started falling, Soran's roots in reality having disappeared with the deaths of his family members, and he was falling towards a goal he couldn't even see anymore.

Though in all honesty, the captain had once figured Soran to be a madman. "The thought had crossed my mind," he replied.

Soran gave him the ghost of a smile, one of a man who had long since forgotten the emotion that caused a person to smile. "The only possible reason you're here is because you're not entirely confident you can shoot down my probe after all. So you've come to dissuade me from my horrific plan."

The smile still brought the light brush of unease across his arms and neck. _A different kind of persuasion this time._

When the captain didn't reply, the skeleton smile that quirked Soran's mouth grew a little. "Good luck," he said, then walked back toward the scaffolding.

_"He knows right where that hole in the forcefield is now, he can head straight for it and stop him from launching that probe." _The words of the Nexus Allie went through his head and it was followed by something he hadn't expected—all the memories of his life in the nexus, what had been the past there, what had been the future there, and of course what had been the present. He remembered it all, all of them being born, all of them taking their first steps, their first words, the first time each of them blurted out a sudden sarcastic zinger, everything. A thought struck him, rife with fear, that he was still in the Nexus, that this chance to do everything over was only a part of his dreams. But the joy wasn't there to be pushed away, threatening to wrap him up. Instead, it was the grim, real determination to complete his task. Also with it came a disappointment, having all those memories now, and Beverly not being able to have them as well.

But he could make sure all of them would be around. The captain opened his hands and reached for the root and propelled himself forward and through the gap in the field, hearing something clatter faintly away and paying no attention to it other than the note in his brain of the sound. This time, he didn't trigger the field, there would be no crackle to alert Soran that he had gotten through and entered his sanctuary. This time he chose an entirely different route, still careful to keep out of Soran's sight, his footsteps soft as possible. Once he and Soran were even, he swung out from his side of the rock and instead of kicking Soran in the face, he threw a punch to the jaw and Soran's head jerked upward then back down. The scientist's fingers loosened on the ladder rung and then he was falling, landing on the platform below, the thud of his body hitting the platform one of finality.

Before, he'd made the mistake of not calculating where he'd hit Soran and hadn't knocked the man out. This time, he'd done it right, Soran was unconscious below him. They wouldn't continue to wrestle for control while the Nexus barreled straight for them. Picard glanced skyward as he climbed down the ladder, the churning ribbon of color had appeared just above the horizon. He was running out of time.

Soran hadn't triggered the cloak on the launcher and its control panel and he ran over and fought despair over the symbols it displayed, an alien language he hadn't even learned even the most rudimentary of terms of. He did recognize one graphic for what must have been the countdown, because its display changed every second. He began tapping away at buttons, hoping that one of them would disable the launcher or shut it down, anything to stop the probe. But nothing he did affected the graphics of the countdown as they continued to race by.

Above him, the Nexus was approaching and across from him, Soran had begun to stir, then his head lifted, eyes to the sky and recognizing the ribbon. Then he was on his feet and bolting for the captain, intent on stopping him by any means possible. Picard became frantic, helplessness nearly overwhelming him as his continued tapping continued to do absolutely nothing. He couldn't see any other control panels and Soran was getting dangerously close, the closeness of the Nexus—of his family—driving him onward. Then one tap changed the display and he recognized it for what it was: the locking mechanism for the probe's target. He tapped everything he could, moving the cross-hair around, but couldn't find any indication of successfully enabling a new target lock.

He glanced up and saw that Soran was only a few steps away, but seemed to have forgotten that he carried a disruptor. Then again, Picard realized that he might be refraining from using it in fear of damaging the probe launcher. He hit another control and suddenly everything related to the probe disappeared. "Damn," he said to himself over his mistake. Picard could feel the contours of the control panel underneath his fingers, but he couldn't see if he was affecting any of it anymore. Then Soran was on him, control padd in one hand, thumb disabling the cloaking mechanism that the captain had mistakenly enabled, his other arm wrapping around Picard's waist as he tackled him to the metal platform.

With Picard on the ground and the panel in view, Soran began to undo whatever the captain had managed to disrupt. On hearing Picard move, Soran whipped his disruptor from his pocket and let loose a barrage of fire. The captain rolled off the platform and underneath it, where Soran wouldn't dare fire. Soran ceased fire and resumed his work on the panel. It seemed he believed that once Picard was out of sight, he was also out of mind and not a danger anymore. The captain kept rolling and came out the other side, jumping onto the platform and grabbing Soran by the ankle, pulling him down away from the panel. As the scientist scrabbled for his disruptor, there was a rumble from the launcher, then the probe was sent out in a roar of fire, trailed by a line of smoke painted on the sky.

Smiling, a true smile Picard had yet to see on the man, Soran watched his work head for the Veridian sun. He was nearly there, his family was right there, waiting in that churning ribbon above.

The look on Picard's face was one of despair, that he had failed, and again, two hundred and thirty million people would die.

Then the two men had their facial expressions switched when the probe suddenly took a veering turn away from the sun, then twisting, twisting again, falling, losing altitude before it finally crashed harmlessly into the forest below with a muffled thump. No explosion. No dying sun.

Only a man dying inside, laying on the platform, not making a sound.

And another man, alive again, getting to his feet, knowing that Soran had ceased to become a threat, because all he knew in that moment was despair. He left Soran behind to mire in his sadness. A glint of light had caught his eye beyond the perimeter of the forcefield. He snatched the control padd and saw that it had been coded in a language he recognized and disabled the field before he walked towards what had caught his attention.

Stepping over the root, he saw the glint for what it was—a pendant. A glass teardrop entirely familiar to him as he picked it up. It was warm in his hand and heavier than he thought it would be. Insight, it held a tiny light, like a star. The fear nearly choked him, thinking he was still in the Nexus, that he would never escape. Allie had put the pendant in his hand before he'd found himself here again, he must have dropped it, it's what he'd heard clinking away before he'd gone for Soran.

But the feeling wasn't there to push away, the one of unbelievable contentment, of an almost drug-like haze of joy. He didn't feel any joy at all, but he did feel something else, something he hadn't felt in a long time.

Hope.

* * *

Beverly Picard heard her daughter scream for her brother over the screaming of the ship's hull, protesting the stress forced on it by the unannounced descent into a planet's atmosphere. Gracie squirmed against her, trying to get to her brother, but her mother refused to let go. Beverly heard herself crying over the choice, over Andrew laying there so close but across a chasm so perilous that she couldn't cross without putting her other two children in danger.

All the lights had gone out, the power entirely gone, the cabin cast into darkness as the ship rumbled through the atmosphere. Gracie stopped screaming, stricken into silence the same as Gabriel had been, both of them burrowing themselves in the safety of their mother's arms. Beverly held both of them tightly, but her eyes stayed on her still son, just out of reach. His body moved with the tremors of the ship crashing through a forest as it landed, plowing over thousands of trees, skidding over and across cliffs, taking the tops off of hills, then back into the trees again before it slowed to a halt.

Quiet.

The ship settled with one last shudder. Gracie began to squirm again, and this time Beverly let her go, the little girl bolting straight for her fallen brother. The doctor looked over Gabriel, scanning for cuts or bruises or signs of trauma, but the infant seemed fine, gazing at her with those green eyes so like Nana's. He was calm and his face betrayed no indication of a crying fit.

Her eyes went over to where Gracie knelt next to her brother, who still hadn't moved. Fear surged through Beverly, that her son hadn't lived through the crash, that she had lost him too. Gracie punched her brother in the arm and shouted at him in a little voice filled with indignance and frustration. "Why didn't you listen to Mom? Why couldn't you just do what she said, just once? Did you have to be so difficult? Why didn't you listen?" her voice began to take on a desperate edge, that she couldn't fathom the idea of losing first her older sister and now her older brother.

Then came a pained reply from Andrew, one given even though he didn't move. "Because obedience was never my strong point," he said, trying to lighten his sister's desperation with humor, like his twin would have done.

Briefly, Beverly recalled something she'd read about twin grief a few days ago, that after the loss of a co-twin, the surviving twin might take on some personality aspects that had belonged to their sibling. It seemed Andrew had followed that pattern to some degree, his insight becoming nearly as uncanny as Allie's, yet it was still tinged with the emotions that were entirely Andrew's.

"And could you please stop punching me?" he continued. "I've already got a headache." He started to try and push himself up.

"Don't you move," Beverly said. If he had any head trauma or any trauma relating to his spinal cord, she didn't want further damage to have to attempt to fix without a sickbay and any help at least two days away.

"You'd better listen," Gracie said. "Or I'll—"

Andrew laughed in spite of the situation. "Or you'll what?" Then he groaned. "Oh, don't make me laugh. It hurts."

Beverly frowned through the slight smile that had started to form. Pain caused by laughter could mean internal injuries or fractured or broken ribs. "Where does it hurt when you laugh?" she asked, making sure to be specific so her son wouldn't give her a reply of 'everywhere.'

"My side," he replied. "Left side." He also had obeyed and hadn't moved.

Fractured rib, maybe more than one. She needed a tricorder and in her mind went through a quick inventory to remember where the nearest one would be. Her bedroom, in the drawer. Beverly got to her feet and held Gabriel in one arm as she cautiously crossed the cabin to her bedroom in search of the tricorder. A bark from Andrew's room startled her, then she remembered Conal as Gracie did the same. The five-year-old jumped up and ran to Andrew's door. It had gone slightly ajar when the power had gone, the opening and closing mechanism releasing its control over the door to manual. The girl wedged her foot, then her shoulder into the small gap and pushed with her entire small body, managing the move the door enough to let the wolfhound pass through.

The dog first seemed to look her over and once satisfied that one charge of his was safe, he went to Andrew. He sniffed Andrew's head, then nudged at his face with his nose.

"Stop that," Andrew said.

Conal wagged his tail in reply, then lay in front of Andrew, placing his head on his paws and watching him. Andrew shifted slightly and Conal growled, only stopping when Andrew went still. Beverly smiled when she heard Gracie laugh. "He doesn't want you to move either," she said.

"Shut up," said Andrew, testing out the theory by moving a hand.

Conal growled again and put a large paw on it, trapping it against the deck, ceasing its movement.

Beverly took another minute to grab a carrier for Gabriel from the nursery so she'd have somewhere to put him while she worked on Andrew, and then after, when they would look for a way for them to get off the ship. On another thought, she also snatched the carrier that could be strapped to an adult's body so that when they did get out, she'd have both of her arms free and still have her youngest son safely with her. She stashed the first into the second because she only had one hand free. Once back out in the demolished living area, she saw that sunlight poured through the frames of what once had been transparent aluminum windows, and a native bird perched perched on the sill, twittering at them.

"I hear a bird," Andrew said. "Please tell me I'm not imagining it."

"There's a bird in the window," she said.

"Fancy that. Bird on the windowsill of a Galaxy class ship."

She carefully placed Gabriel in the first carrier and set him next to her as she knelt beside Andrew, flipping open the tricorder and scanning him. "You've got a mild concussion," she said. "And you've got two fractured ribs."

"Fractured as in cracked or fractured as in broken?" he asked.

"Cracked. And I'll need you sitting up to get a good angle when I heal them," she said. She turned around, "Gracie, can you please get me—"

But the little girl had already run and gotten the medkit and now held it out to her. "I thought ahead," she said. "I knew you couldn't carry that and everything else, so I got it."

"Thank you," Beverly said, giving her a smile, knowing it was the first warm smile she'd given her daughter in days.

Gracie beamed.

"Now, can you help me get your brother sitting up?" Beverly asked.

In reply, Gracie went next to Andrew and got one of his arms.

"I can get up myself, you know," he said.

"Not when I say you can't," Beverly said, then helped him up with Gracie's assistance, positioning him so that his weight rested on the nearest bulkhead. Conal switched to a sitting position and continued his watch over his human. "I need you to lift up your shirt," she said.

He started to protest immediately. "Mom—"

"Do it."

He scowled and lifted his shirt just enough to display the extensive bruising on the left side of his ribcage. She could see why he had fractured ribs and was surprised that there were only two and that they hadn't broken entirely. But because they hadn't, they'd done their job and protected his heart and lungs from puncture and further damage. She grabbed a plaser from the kit and when she turned back to fix Andrew's ribs, she took first a physician's observation of his abdominal wall and chest, then a mother's, and wondered when her son had become this muscular, because gone were the muscles a boy would display and in place of them had formed the sculpted abs, chest, and probably arms of an adult elite athlete. Though, he wasn't hairy, and probably would never be, not with coloring like his grandfather's. But it was disconcerting for her, seeing her son, her little boy, with a man's body.

When she touched the bruised area above his fractured ribs, he winced slightly. "You found the spot," he said. "Why do you always have to touch where someone's hurt? And around it, too?" Then he answered the question himself, before Beverly had a chance to think of a reply. "Nana was like that though, very hands-on. Even though it might hurt when you're touched, it's only for a second, then it's reassuring to feel the doctor's hands."

She gave him a crooked smile. "Something like that," she said. "Now hold still." As she moved the plaser over the area, the bruising faded then disappeared, leaving behind undamaged skin. Underneath, the bones of his ribs had knitted themselves back together, just as strong as before. "Can you breathe easier now?"

He nodded. "Like normal. What about my head?"

"I'm getting to that." With one hand on top of his head, she went through the same process with the swollen lump and the laceration. At least none of the aluminum had lodged inside the cut, which is what she knew had caused it by the slight molecular residue the shard had left behind.

She noticed he was looking over her shoulder instead of at her. "When did that bird get there?" he asked.

"Do you remember the ship crashing?" she asked, frowning.

He looked at her in askance. "Yes." Then he frowned. "But not the landing. Why?"

She scanned him again, changing to the highest level she could get with a tricorder's brain scan. "Because you made a comment about that bird less than five minutes ago. You've got anterograde amnesia and you lost consciousness...and it seems retrograde amnesia as well, though that could be due to you not being conscious instead of the brain injury."

"Which means?"

"Which means you experienced a grade three concussion, which is only one grade less than your friend Zav's a few months ago."

"Oh," he said.

"Mmm. Exactly. Hold still."

"If case you failed to notice, I haven't moved."

"Then stop talking."

He glared, but didn't say anything as she repaired the minimal damage to his axons where a few had sheared away due to the sudden acceleration and deceleration of his brain inside his skull. No white matter had gone into any of the gray matter and that gave her some relief. She could heal the extent of the damage now and not have to worry about further injury or the need for more complicated medical procedures to repair possible extensive damage. "There," she said, sitting back. "Fixed. And I might even consider giving you a clean bill of health."

"Good," he said, starting to get to his feet.

Conal growled.

Andrew glared at his dog. "She said I was fine," he said.

"He's okay, Conal," the doctor said. "You can let him up now."

Satisfied with Beverly's permission, the wolfhound stopped growling and stood up as Andrew did, tail wagging as Andrew scratched behind his ears. The dog checked on Beverly, then sniffed around Gabriel's head before investigating the empty window frames. The bird gave a good squawk as Conal approached before quickly flying away.

Andrew ventured out into the corridor and the doctor could hear that at least one other person was alive on their deck. "I've got a rope ladder," one woman said. "At least, I think what could pass for one. Maybe."

Beverly recognized the voice of Ensign Kai and followed her son into the corridor.

Kai continued to explain. "I had a lot of climbing ropes around and saw how far down the ground was, so I just started tying knots. Your cabin is the closest one to the ground, so we should toss it out from your windows."

"Right," said Andrew. "Bring it on over."

Kai followed him, lugging the rope ladder with her. She smiled when she saw that the others were also alive and well.

"We'll have to tie that off to something," Beverly said. "What could hold each of us? And good thinking, Ensign," she said, addressing Kai, another person to whom she owed an apology.

"The table," said Andrew, moving over to the knocked over dining table. "We can brace it against two of the beams for the windows and it's got enough strength to hold us. We'll just go down one at a time to be sure."

It took all three of them to move the table onto its side and then carry it closer to the windows. Andrew secured the hastily constructed ladder to the table, putting his knowledge of sailing knots to good use. "That should work," he said.

Then they hoisted the table up and braced it against the windows, using the couch to support it when the ladder was slack. The ladder itself draped down and outside the hull of the ship, ending only a meter from the forest floor.

"That was a good two or three meter gap from my window," Kai said.

Beverly shrugged the carrier over her shoulders and Kai immediately got Gabriel and placed him securely inside.

"I'll go down first," Andrew said, moving to the ladder.

"Oh no you won't," said Kai. "I've got the phaser, I'm a Starfleet officer, the doctor outranks me, but she's carrying your brother. So I'm going down first and you'll have to bring Gracie with you when you come down.

Andrew remembered he still had his gear from his hiking trip in his room. "Ensign, do you know how to rappel?" he asked. "And belay."

"Of course I do," she said. "I wouldn't have climbing equipment in my cabin if I didn't."

"I've got my equipment in my room. If you go down on the ladder, then I can rappel down if you belay, and my mother can, too." He slid a look at Beverly. "How long has it been since you went rappelling?"

She frowned. "Nearly two years." She'd also disliked it immensely, but she had to admit rappelling would be the safer option, with a safety harness and a person belaying from the ground, the chance of falling would be significantly reduced. "But I remember how to do it. Let's get those harnesses and ropes together."

Between them, there where three harnesses. Andrew could hold a safety rope attached to Kai's harness while she went down the ladder, then Kai could use the harness as she belayed the rest of them down. Using some of the extra rope, Andrew devised a harness for Gracie that would keep her safely attached to him in case she lost her grip on him.

Kai executed the first step their plan and landed without difficulty. She scouted a bit around the area to determine its safety, just in case some animals hadn't run from the ship. They all doubted that any animals had hung around, but they had to be sure.

"I want you two to go down next," Beverly said, looking at Andrew and Gracie. "No arguments."

They looked like they both wanted to object, but kept their silence at the finality in Beverly's tone. She wouldn't be swayed in the least and they both recognized it.

Andrew noticed Conal watching them worriedly, as he had throughout their planning. He went over and bend down to speak to him. "I can't make a harness for you, too," he said. "You'll have to stay here. But I'll come back and get you, so don't try anything stupid like jumping out after us, because you wouldn't survive a fall like that. So you stay here."

It seemed the dog understood, because he remained in his sitting position and watched as Andrew went down with Gracie. They got to the ground safely and Kai gave Beverly a thumbs up as Andrew extricated Gracie from her harness and then from being clipped by safety rope to him.

Beverly gave her cabin one last look. Conal had settled on the deck, watching her and Gabriel with his head on his paws. When she looked over the side of the ship, the height sent a thrill of fear through her, but she quashed it, this had to do with safety, primarily that of her children, so she couldn't afford to be paralyzed by her fears. That thought in mind, she rappelled her way down as gently as she could, Gabriel strapped to the front of her body.

It was surreal, looking up at the ship from a planet's surface, with the ship not in the sky but towering over them, a beached whale that wouldn't be going back into the ocean. Andrew reached out and touched the hull. "I always wanted to do that," he said.

The doctor removed the harness and Andrew took it, looping it around his shoulder as he'd done with the others. Kai had coiled the rope around her own shoulder. "Okay, we'll walk around the ship and we should meet up with some others. Most likely," Beverly said.

Ensign Kai immediately went to the front of the group, taking the same role she had before when she'd gone out of the window first. Andrew took up the rear and Gracie walked in the middle with her mother, clinging tightly to her hand.

"Do you know where Papa is?" Gracie asked. "I didn't hear him on the bridge, when you played the audio."

"I don't know where he is," Beverly answered. "I wish I did."

"Do you think he's alive?" she asked, peering up at her.

"Captain Picard always comes out alive on the other end," Kai said, not looking back as they went around the curve of the hull. "More lives than a cat."

Beverly didn't mention the other fear that skittered across her skin, leaving near-shivers in its wake. She was always afraid that one day, that luck would catch up to him and he wouldn't come back and that they would all lose him. "I hope so," she said aloud. She had so much to tell him now, and it all would start with an apology that she hoped he would hear.


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

As Jean-Luc Picard watched, Tolian Soran removed the watch from his pocket for one last time, staring at its face. "No..." he said, his voicing giving out, dropping off. Then the watch fell away from his fingers, still open, displaying that his time had indeed run out. The Nexus rushed above them, high in the sky, just out of the planet's atmosphere. Soran's fingers stretched for it, desperate, but it was gone.

The captain had made his way back to the platform and taken a seat on the hard, cold metal, waiting. Silence stepped between the two men, the minutes ticking by, filled with nothing but time and quiet. Picard occupied his time by thinking and looking around at the forest below the plateau. He'd finally figured out who Soran reminded him of—Kevin Uxbridge, the Douwd who had destroyed an entire civilization in an instant, billions of people gone, far surpassing the millions that Soran had intended on destroying, far far surpassing the few that Soran had managed to kill in his quest. Except the Douwd's crime had occurred in one instant, one man whose power exceeded his ability to control his love that became hatred with the death of his wife at the hands of those whom he killed in retribution. After that instant, the man had lived in guilt and shame for what he'd done, forever plagued by his conscience. But Soran didn't have just an instant, he'd had nearly a century to change his mind, to stop that flash of hatred's actions and not do anything so harmful. And Soran didn't seem to care. He had no conscience over that matter, only the guilt he associated with leaving his child behind.

Picard decided that he could somehow make Soran face the responsibility for what he'd done. That he should, he felt compelled to do so. But he would have to wait for the right time, and it seemed for he and Soran right then, time was all they had until the _Enterprise_ found them. He hoped they were all okay, that the ship hadn't run into difficulties with the Klingon Bird of Prey. Lursa and B'Etor's ship was an old one, so the _Enterprise_ wouldn't have too much difficulty were it to come to a firefight. But he had confidence in Will's negotiating ability, so it wouldn't need to come to that. He had so much to explain to Beverly, so much to tell her, so much to show her.

He remembered in the Nexus, the knowledge he'd been given of Beverly's dream there, her life there, that he'd known exactly what she needed, that she needed the simplicity of him being there, not even needing to say anything, just that human touch of reassurance. That she wasn't alone. He intended to do that, he could change that much, he just had to get past his own blindness, the blindness that Soran had caused. The blindness that had taken Soran long ago.

Picard wouldn't allow the man to take anything else away from him. He didn't deserve to have that sort of control over him and he wouldn't allow it any longer. From now on he'd be open with his wife and hoped that she would do the same and he intended to start from the first moment he saw her again.

But now, all he had to do was wait.

"I'll never see them again," came Soran's whisper from his spot on the platform. He hadn't gotten up, hadn't even moved since that last desperate reach for the retreating Nexus. "They were there, passing above me. All I wanted was to see them. To be with them. How could you not understand that wish?"

"I do understand," said Picard. He understood all too well, how a man could stand at the precipice of a life-altering decision, one that would impact not only himself and his loved ones, but everyone around him, everyone associated with his life in some way. He understood how thin that line between love and hate could become, opaque and then transparent, how such devotion and deep emotion could be twisted into something dark, changing from love to hate and without even the realization that it had changed. The captain knew he wasn't superhuman, he was as fallible as any man. He could easily see himself taking the path Soran had taken if he wasn't limited by the much shorter human lifespan. The same as he knew he could have taken the path the Douwd had chosen, overwhelmed in an instant by infinite power at hand coupled with that burning hatred, the need for retribution.

Retribution. It was an act taken by a person in retaliation of a senseless act of violence against another. Retribution was meant to give meaning to that senseless death. The captain understood. He'd wanted the same, the instinctive male within himself that was his daughter's father. He'd wanted to get back at Soran, to hurt him in some way, because then Allie's death would have had some meaning.

And in a way, she'd led him along that path. It hadn't ended in Soran's physical death, but certainly in a death of another sort, yet one necessary in order to prevent the deaths of at least two hundred and thirty million others. When Soran didn't answer him, the captain decided he'd follow that same line of questioning he had before the Nexus had taken them. It had rattled the El Aurian then and now it would rattle him more, because instead of running out of time, he now had all the time in the world.

"What was her name?" he asked, pitching his voice like before, making it almost gentle, camouflaging the actual depth of the question.

The was a slight rustle heard in the silence as Soran moved his head to glance in askance at the Starfleet captain. "What?"

Picard didn't look at him. "Your daughter. What was her name?"

"Hani." Soran's reply held that note of defeat, that he would answer nearly anything, because none of it mattered anymore.

"What was she like?" The captain knew the other man would answer, the compulsion to talk about his lost daughter would be too strong to defeat, because the question about his daughter would have brought her image to the forefront of his mind and he couldn't help but answer. It was all he could do.

"She was...gentle. Always a happy child. When she smiled, it was like the sun had lit up an entire room, and you had to smile in return, you couldn't _not_ smile."

"You loved her. You still do." Picard had heard it in the other man's voice, a mirror to his own when he talked about his daughters.

"She was my daughter."

No other answer was required, they both knew what it meant. "You had a son as well, didn't you?" asked the captain.

"Two. Both older than Hani. They were different, somehow. I didn't love them any less than I did my daughter, but she was like an entirely different creature. I would have done anything for her. She was such a mystery, just like her mother. Even though she was partly mine, it offered me no extra insight into how her mind worked. You must understand, having a daughter of your own."

It disturbed Picard to hear his own thoughts almost exactly repeated by this man, the one who would have wantonly killed millions of people for the sake of returning to his daughter, his family. He decided it was time to stop playing around. "I used to have two."

Soran let out a dry laugh, one tinged with no humor, only irony. "Oh, Picard. We've had this conversation before, haven't we? We did enter the Nexus, I remember. I saw them ever so briefly. They were right there...I didn't even have time to hug them. I saw them and they were gone, I was ripped away like I was before." Soran paused, contemplating his next words. "Why did you do it? What made you leave the Nexus and do this all over again and stop me, stop yourself, from being in the Nexus? Surely, you must have been with your oldest daughter. You gave her up?"

"She asked me to come back."

"And you granted her request? And had she not asked, would you have stayed?"

"It wasn't real." So quickly, Soran had managed to turn the attack around and back at the captain.

"That doesn't answer my question, Captain. You're dodging the truth. You would have chosen a life with your daughter alive rather than saving the lives of those people on Veridian Four. Perhaps you and I are not so different, after all. You would have chosen the same path I did, if given the chance."

Picard drew on the conversation from before, throwing out the questions he knew would hurt the other man. "When you tucked your children into bed, do you suppose they ever suspected that their father would one day kill millions as casually as he kissed them goodnight? The father they loved is very different from the man you are now. You're nothing but a pale shadow of what was and they would be horrified to find what you've done and what you would have done in their name."

"I don't see how you can talk about love of children. If you loved your daughter so much that you would have chosen to stay with her rather than those two hundred and thirty million people. So why did you choose to leave?" He paused slightly, giving the captain a chance to justify his actions as Soran would see fit. But he said nothing, so Soran spoke for him. "Maybe you didn't love her so much after all."

"I chose to leave for that very reason. I chose to leave _because_ I love my daughter. Allie would never have forgiven me if I stood by and allowed those people to perish, all two hundred and thirty million to her one. I know her and she knows me. Do you truly think Hani would forgive you if she knew that you killed millions of people just to get back to her? Do you think Hani would forgive you if she knew you killed another child to get back to her? Could you look her in the eye for the eternity that's the Nexus, knowing lengths you had gone to at the unwilling sacrifice of others? And all of it, all of it for something that wasn't even real. The only thing that was real in the Nexus were the emotions generated from within yourself. All that joy, all that happiness, that wasn't real. It was artificially created, artificially given, like a highly addictive drug. And I understand its addiction, I nearly fell prey to it myself." Picard finally turned and looked at the scientist, his eyes challenging Soran to object.

He obliged. "What I felt in there was real, you—"

"No it wasn't." The captain had no intention of the man getting away without facing reality. "Not that joy and not that happiness. That guilt that ate away deep inside you, gnawing away at your heart? That was real because it's real out here, an emotion you carried with you when you went, and one you carried with you when you left. Your daughter is gone, Soran. She was taken from you, as mine was taken from me."

"I couldn't let the Borg take her," he said, his tone falling away from anger and back down into his despair.

Picard wouldn't let up, pressing onward, driving in his point. "Don't you see? You've turned into the Borg yourself with this quest of yours to bring the Nexus to you. Everything to serve you as you see fit, fitting everything into your plan, damn the consequences it has on anyone else. Nothing can replace what you took from me, from her mother, from her twin, from her younger brother and sister. Not even the Nexus."

He knew that any physical harm he could bring to this man wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't be retribution in the least, it would only aid in making him into the same sort of being Soran had become. Leaving him alive would surely be more painful than letting him die.

"And like when you're assimilated by the Borg, a shell with a dying soul inside, the body refusing to die as you want it to, you get to live with what you've become." He paused, making sure that the El Aurian was looking him right in the eye. "I should know what sort of hell that is, Soran. I lived through it. I came through alive on the other side, and in a way, Allie died because I lived. But what you have to live with is far worse than what I do."

The silence appeared again, a shroud over Soran as he realized his fate for the first time. The captain let him be, wanting no more part of the man who shared the metal platform with him as they waited.

Waited.

Picard began to wonder what was going on with his ship, why they'd yet to find him, contact him. Soran interrupted his worry, speaking aloud, to himself or to Picard, the captain didn't know.

"I hear her, all the time, asking me in that little voice of hers, so bewildered, innocent. 'Papa, why are you crying?' And I couldn't give her an answer. It was the last time—"

The drone of a shuttle interrupted Soran's reverie. The captain stood up, recognizing it as one of his own from the _Enterprise_. The small ship landed on the opposite side of the plateau and it had barely reached the ground when Worf and two security officers jumped out. "Captain, are you all right?" asked Worf.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant," said Picard.

"And Dr. Soran?"

The captain glanced behind him. Soran hadn't moved from where he was laying on the platform. "Go ahead and take him into custody. Though...I don't think he's much of a threat anymore."

Worf indicated with his hand and his two subordinates moved forward to help Soran to his feet. The Klingon gave Picard a serious look. "You are injured," he said.

"A few bumps and bruises, Mr. Worf. Nothing serious." He frowned, realizing that his crew members had chosen taking a shuttle over beaming down. "Why did you travel by shuttle?" he asked, now taking a closer look at said shuttle. The hull had quite a few dents in it, along with scorch marks. His security chief's uniform was torn in two places and the skin through them bore the newness of being recently healed.

Geordi stepped out of the shuttle, done with piloting for the moment. His uniform bore chemical burn marks from a what could only have been a coolant leak.

"Was there a problem with the Klingons?" the captain asked.

Worf and Geordi exchanged looks. LaForge sighed. "You could say that," he said. "We'd better get going, Captain." Then he climbed back into the shuttle.

The two security officers followed, escorting Dr. Soran in between them. The captain fell into step with Worf and took the co-pilot's seat next to Geordi, leaving Worf to keep watch over Soran. As the shuttle cruised over the vast forested continent on the planet, the captain grew concerned, as normally the shuttle would be headed out of the atmosphere and into orbit, not continuing on across the geography. "Mr. LaForge, I'd appreciate it if you would let me know what's happened with my ship," he said, turning his look over to his chief engineer.

The shuttle dipped down through a low-lying cloud, turned, and then Geordi indicated with his head to the forward window. "Take a look for yourself, Captain," he said.

Almost warily, Picard looked out the front window and found himself staring at the wreckage of what used to be the saucer section of a Galaxy class vessel. Through scorch marks and immense amounts of soil, he could make out the ship's registry numbers and her name. He saw people milling about outside the vessel and what looked like the beginnings of a makeshift camp set up just outside wrecked hull. Glimpses of white caught his eye and he observed officers carrying stretchers down to the camp. "Some trouble," he said, then allowed the reality to sink in. The ship was gone. Geordi's chemical burns from a coolant leak could only mean that there had been a warp core breach. The whole stardrive section must have been destroyed.

The captain realized that he'd left them all behind in his need to confront Soran, despite the noble purpose he might have had with saving those two hundred and thirty million people. Frantically, he scanned for any glimpses of red hair, but the shuttle was too high to discern anything of use. The sun glinted off the top of the hull, a hull touched by light filtered through an atmosphere, something that should never be witness for this ship. But there it was. He looked for the section of the ship where his family's quarters had been. He found it, saw the deep black marks around it, the hull breech near it, and he couldn't pinpoint exactly where their quarters had been. But easily, they could all be lost, blown out by a hull breach into the empty darkness of space, frozen and lifeless.

His hope began to fade.

* * *

Beverly Picard followed Ensign Kai around the bend and now they could hear voices of other survivors. "Commander Riker?" Kai said, getting the first officer's attention.

"Ensign," he said. "Have you found—" he trailed off as the others came into sight.

Beverly walked into the clearing and found herself caught up in a bear hug from Will Riker. "It's good to see you," he said, then looked at the others. "And you three as well." He bent down to speak with Gracie.

Deanna was already reaching for her friend with both arms. "I'm so happy you made it through okay," she said.

Gabriel squirmed, tired of being stuck between his mother and one adult or another. Beverly saw the question in Troi's eyes. "They're all okay," she said. "Andrew had a couple cracked ribs and a concussion, but I had a medkit handy." She looked down at Gracie. "And a pretty good assistant."

Gracie studied Will very seriously. "Andrew got hurt because he was stupid."

Riker grinned, raising an eyebrow up at Andrew. "Is that so?"

"Mmm." Andrew nodded. "It's not the smartest thing to do to stand in front of the windows when a ship is hurtling through a planet's atmosphere."

The first officer stood up, plucking the five-year-old from the ground on his way. Beverly wasn't sure who was comforting whom at that point, Gracie probably grateful for the safety she'd find in Will's arms, and Will at knowing that one of the ship's children was safe and well. "Is he well enough to help with this makeshift camp and to help search for the wounded?" Riker asked, directing his question towards Beverly.

The doctor glanced over at her son, sizing him up. Technically, he was fine, but she didn't feel like letting him out of her sight just yet. "I'll let him help out if I stay with him," she said. She knew that Gabriel and Gracie would be fine, safe in the camp with others. But Andrew, if he was searching through the ship, he wouldn't be as safe, and she wanted to be with him.

To her surprise, Andrew didn't object to her company. Instead, he shrugged and said nothing. She wondered if somehow, he felt he needed to be with her too, that somehow, sons would always need their mothers, and sometimes, they would come close to admitting it. Like in France, when Jean-Luc had wanted guidance, he'd gone to think by sitting against the wall surrounding the graveyard where his mother was buried.

_Jean-Luc._

Deanna glanced at her, recognizing the emotions running through the doctor. She wasn't given a chance to ask before Gracie had already asked Will the question on her mind. "Where's Papa?" she asked. "Andrew said something about him being down on the planet and I told Ensign Kai that I didn't hear him on the bridge."

"We're going to be sending out search parties in shuttles," Will said. "We've got three that are working and as soon as we've got enough people to pilot and man them, we're sending them out to look for the captain."

"Was he on this planet before us?"

"Yes."

She frowned. "Was he with the man with the scar?"

Will raised an eyebrow. "You mean Dr. Soran? Yes, he was with him."

"He's a very sad man, you know. He dreamed about his little girl. She was my age." She changed her train of thought. "Andrew gets to help. Does that mean I do too?"

Alyssa Ogawa strode over, carrying a box of supplies. "You can help me if you want," she said to Gracie, then smiled at Beverly. "One of the schoolteachers has volunteered to watch the ship's children so that more adults are freed up to search. I'll bring Gabriel over to her if you want, Doctor, and Miss Mary Grace can come with me."

The girl had already wriggled out of Riker's grasp and Alyssa unceremoniously dumped the box into Gracie's arms. "You can start by carrying that," said the nurse.

For a moment, it looked like the girl was going to object, but she settled for giving Ogawa the same annoyed look she would give her brother, the one with the crinkled brow that she'd inherited from her father.

_Where are you, Jean-Luc? You can't leave us now._

Caught up by her thoughts, Beverly handed Gabriel and his carrier over to her head nurse, placing a kiss on the top of his head before she let him go. She watched with the hint of a small smile as Gracie trotted behind the Starfleet medical officer, now entirely distracted, or at least mostly, from her worries about her father. And she was safe.

Will noticed her preoccupation. "We'll find him, Beverly," he said, squeezing her on the shoulder with a warm hand.

Behind them, Andrew shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. "So...you said you had some work for me?" he asked.

The subject changed, all of them needing the distraction, Riker took them to where he'd set up a command center to run the small camp. Beverly took note of the two bodies already draped with sheets in a far corner. Opposite that temporary morgue, Selar was organizing a small field hospital for the survivors, medical personnel already swarming about. "Selar tells me that there aren't any serious injuries yet and that she would rather you help search the ship until your expertise is needed at the field hospital we've set up..." he trailed off at the raised eyebrow Beverly gave him. "Okay, that we're in the _process_ of setting up," he amended. Then he grabbed a padd from a stack of padds piled on one of the containers that had become a desk of sorts, read it quickly, and handed it to Beverly. "I'll assign you and Andrew to search deck six. I'll let you know when we've found anyone with serious injuries."

Beyond Will, Beverly noticed Geordi and Worf checking over one of the shuttles and two more security officers trotting over carrying phasers and tricorders. Riker noticed that her attention had wandered and followed her eyes to what she was observing. "Looks like they're ready to start a search," he said.

The doctor nodded. She desperately wanted to go but kept repeating her thoughts to herself that her place was here, she had to stay with the ship, her crew, her children, and leave the search for her husband up to other personnel. "So they are," she said aloud, then turned to Andrew. "Might as well start."

His eyes had been where hers were, watching as the shuttle began rise off the ground. "Right." He followed the doctor, walking away as reluctantly as she did.

Some officers and crew were busy setting up another ramp up into the saucer section, one more stable than the first narrow, rickety ramp. Beverly located their section and Andrew stayed right by her side as they went inside the ship, his eyes wide in shock at how truly wrecked the ship was. "Not much left," he said. "Will did a good job on it, never does anything halfway, does he? But he's in for it when Papa gets back."

Beverly turned to him as they carefully walked over the debris littering the darkened corridor. "Since when have you called him that?"

Andrew shrugged. "Since we were in France. Seemed more natural than calling him Dad, especially with Allie..." his voice started to fade at mentioning his twin sister and he faltered, then regained some volume. "And Gracie calling him that. I felt out of place. So I switched, too. I guess—"

A loud crash up ahead of them interrupted his reply. They both jumped at the sound, then peered down the corridor to see a shaft of sunlight shining through a hole in the ceiling. Beverly frowned. "There are five decks above us, we shouldn't be seeing any light. At least not from the sun."

They approached the area carefully, then looked upward to find that a hull breach earlier had decided to start opening up the lower decks. "More unstable than I thought it would be," Andrew said, taking a look at the new debris the collapse had carried with it.

The doctor reached out and took him by the arm, pulling him away from the hole. "Maybe you should go back outside the ship," she said.

"Absolutely not," he said, extricating his arm and taking one of the padds that had fallen off the floor. He started to read it, not looking at her.

She crossed her arms. "Andrew."

He didn't answer, instead he just kept looking at the padd.

"Andrew."

This time he answered, but his voice was rough, much different from the resoluteness of scarcely a few minutes ago. "Because horses and humans have lived and worked together for thousands of years, an extensive specialized vocabulary has arisen to describe virtually every horse behavioral and anatomical characteristic with a high degree of precision..." he trailed off with strained laugh. "She really left these things everywhere." Then he didn't move, the padd stayed in his hand, and his eyes never left its display. Her son just stood there.

Beverly remembered this scene, this very situation, it had occurred only the day before, in their quarters. Only that time, Andrew had dropped the padd and she'd snapped at him, not realizing until he'd left the room what had been on that padd. And when he came back, it had been too late for an apology, for sympathy, so they had continued their argument instead. So much had happened since then, so much that had exposed every hiding place each of them had and left them out in the open, vulnerable, hurt. Then she saw his jaw start to work and she was certain he was thinking about his twin, a loss now made worse by the destruction of the _Enterprise_, which had become his home in the past year. Beverly was sure that he also felt like his parents were heading for separation and she couldn't blame him for assuming that, because she and Jean-Luc had been at odds since the news of Allie's death.

Something else she needed to fix.

His chin started to tremble, a cascade of a breakdown, him feeling everything she must feel, with his own unique situation added to it. Her son was experiencing a pain far different from anyone else's, a pain that none of them could know or understand. It hurt her, seeing her son in pain, fighting to overcome it. She wanted to help him somehow, to reach him, somehow be able to make it better, or at least not so rough, but the time for that had been earlier, in so many of the moments before this one.

"Andrew," she said, her tone soft.

He looked up at her, his gray eyes showing how lost his was, like a little boy, even as her son stood at the cusp of manhood. "Here," he said, his voice a whisper's tremor. "It was Allie's." He extended his arm and held out the padd.

She reached out to take it and saw that, like his voice, his hand trembled, his entire body trembled. Without a conscious thought, with one hand she took the padd from him, then reached with the other, took his wrist, and pulled him to her. She brought her hand holding the padd around him, then the arm with the free hand around him as well, not letting him go.

For a moment, he didn't move, not knowing how to react, still trying to regain his emotional balance, but it was a battle he wouldn't win. It required surrender to that feeling, it would be the only way to let it go, and it's part of what made them human. "She's gone," he said, barely audible, in a voice that carried with it the shock as if he'd just realized it. But it was the first time he'd said it aloud, acknowledging what he hadn't wanted to since the day Allie had died.

"You're not alone," Beverly said, realizing what exactly her son feared most, having lost the one person he'd had with him throughout his entire life—that the only stability he had known would forever be gone, and he would always be alone.

Andrew didn't say anything aloud, but his arms moved around her, and he was hugging her back, tightly, as if she were saving him from drowning. His head dropped to her shoulder, hiding his eyes. "She's really gone," he said, his words muffled by the fabric of her uniform. "I don't know who I am anymore."

She held him as tightly as she could. "You're my son," she said. "And even though she's gone, you're still her twin. You don't have to hold anything back or hide anything about how you feel. Let it go, it's what makes you human. And it's okay to feel lost, just don't let yourself stumble around alone anymore."

He let her go and took a step back. "Everything's falling apart without her," he said, then started to gesture around them, at the wreckage of the ship around them. "The ship crashing, it's like the final event illustrating just how bad everything has gotten. You talk about stumbling around alone and telling me not to do it, when you do it yourself. When we _all_ are. I lost my twin and then as I've watched, it's like I'm going to lose my family, my parents, too. You're all closed off, Papa is spending more and more time away from us because it's such a quagmire to be with the rest of us, he's gone so far that he beamed down to a planet to confront a dangerous man rather than stay home and confront us. Gracie has changed so much, it's like she isn't even the same person. We just lost our home, I mean, there's sunlight peeking through, all the way down here to deck six." His mood had shifted again, from that quiet desperation to the shouting he'd been holding in since he got back from Earth. "I've been doing my best to stay in control so I can fix things and I can't seem to make any headway."

Beverly found herself replying with the phrase she'd repeated to herself over and over as the days had gone by. "I can't fall apart."

"You already have," he said, first softly, then the volume increased as he continued to speak. "Don't you see? You aren't yourself, you haven't been since I got back, and I'm sure you haven't been since you first got the news."

And then she was back in that moment.

_Deeply regret...structure fire...Natalie Picard..._

_A stylus bounced on the deck, unnoticed..._

_I can't breathe, my chest is being crushed, suffocated..._

_Heartfelt sympathy...great loss..._

_I can't breathe...can't fall apart...can't be happening..._

_bereavement...transport remains..._

_...can't fall apart...can't fall apart...they'll need me..._

_...no, I'm not ready for this._

"And do you think I was?" her son's question came out calm, arresting her fall into memory.

Even though the question was asked gently, it jolted her right back to the present, because she realized she must have said something aloud. "I'm not ready for this," she said again.

"And do you think I was?" he asked again, eyes plaintive.

Beverly shook her head and looked at her son, this boy, this near-man that was half her and half the man she loved. His sister had been that, half her and half Jean-Luc, but entirely her own person, just as Andrew was, standing in front of her. With each of them, it was a love far deeper than she could ever fathom, and she would never be able to let that go. "No...when you love somebody, you're never ready to let them go."

His face was open, she could almost see his vulnerability as he asked his next question. "Then why are you so willing to let my father go?"

She saw the words she'd spoken to Jean-Luc in their son's eyes. _Maybe some things are just not meant to be...we can't go on like this. _And she'd meant it, she wanted...she wanted what she remembered, from what must have been the Nexus, of him being there without question, right when she needed him. "I'm not...I've already lost him once. I'm not ready for it to happen again."

"Then why don't _you_ let go? Why can't you stop hiding and be the mother I need you to be?" His voice and eyes had left the calm far behind and she could hear the hysteria chasing away the calm he'd had a moment before. Then she saw as he realized exactly what he'd admitted, that he needed her. But he didn't close himself off, he was giving her the chance to do what she should have done a long time ago.

_My son needs me_. _Maybe letting go and saying good bye doesn't mean you let go of the love you have for the person, that it will stay with you, always._ She would still be alive with all of them, both in the memories she they had of the past year and the memories of the Nexus, as if Jean-Luc had stayed that night, all of those memories that all of them wished for, she had them. She needed to know if her son had them as well. "Do you remember," she asked, softly, because it was all she could manage. "Do you remember that the first week you were aboard the _Enterprise_, you were grounded because of things you said on Farpoint Station?"

"I remember," he said, his voice back to quiet, representing the wild swings of his accompanying emotions. "But none of it was real...it didn't actually happen. That was the Nexus. We were all in the Nexus."

"But you remember?"

"I remember."

"It's what you should have had," she said.

"I know." Andrew glanced around the corridor, up through the hole in the ceiling. "But it wasn't real. This is reality, here and now." He was trembling again, his hands had formed fists, willing himself to stop and be in control. Now she could see the tears the sun made bright as they brimmed in his eyes and he refused to let them fall.

_He needs me_. He'd admitted it and she needed to make a better reality, her opportunity was there. So she reached out again, brought him into a tight hug, not letting him escape. "I'm right here," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said, frozen in place.

"No, it isn't. But it will be."

His arms relaxed and then came around her. She was saving him from drowning again, she could feel the desperation, the hysteria that had tinged his voice before running throughout his entire body. "I'm lost without her," he said. "I never wanted to say good bye."

"Saying good bye doesn't mean you let go of what you had," she said. "And we got to see her, one last time. We were able to say good bye to her, and that was a gift that not many people are ever given."

"If I already said good bye, why do I feel like crying?" he asked. Beverly knew, hearing the trembling in his tone, at his unwillingness to look up, that he not only felt like crying, but that he already was.

"It's okay to cry," she said, remembering what she'd told Gracie and what the little girl's reply had been. "You cry when you're ready to say good bye." And she found that she wanted to cry as well, but not everyone was home. She couldn't let go, not yet.

Minutes went by, nothing said, everything thought, everything caught up in memories that had and hadn't been. Then a thump from one of the doors got their attention and they jumped as Deanna Troi fought her way through a damaged doorway and into the corridor. "We managed to make another ramp," she said, dusting herself off, then squinting up at the hole in the ceiling. "Kind of bright in here, don't you think?"

"Due to your piloting skills," Andrew said, mischief sprinting across his eyes.

The counselor's reply was to punch him in the arm. "Don't you even start," she said, glancing from one to the other. "And it's about time the both of you had a chat." Her second statement was said gently, indicating that she'd felt the emotions coming from the two of them, and had chosen to come through the door once she knew it wouldn't startle them from finally finishing talking about things they had needed to confront for a long time. "Anyway," she continued, allowing the moment to pass. "Will sent me up here to fetch the two of you to help out at the camp. There's enough wounded coming in that Selar would like more help."

"I can't help with first aid, I've got a horrible bedside manner," Andrew said, holding up his hands.

"Will has other plans for you," replied Troi, starting to pick her way through the debris back to where she'd entered. "Come on."

"What sort of plans?" Andrew asked, following Deanna, Beverly close behind.

"You'll see," said the counselor.

"That's not an answer."

"It's all the answer you're going to get from me."

Andrew and Troi continued their lighthearted banter as the group descended the ramp. Beverly felt a smile almost reaching her lips. Her son would be okay. They reached the camp and saw Alyssa had been good on her word and had put Gracie to work. The little girl was running to and fro, gathering and handing off instruments to medics and nurses, talking to some of the patients, flashing them a smile, then running off again on other errands. The small group came to a halt just outside the camp.

"Maybe she'll be a doctor after all," Andrew said, inclining his head towards his younger sister.

"Well, she was the only one of you that preferred to at least have her retinal nerve detached before the razorbeast ripped it out," Beverly replied, glancing back at her friend and her son.

Deanna wasn't able to keep the shock out of her face from the comment and having no idea what it meant other than sounding incredibly grisly. Andrew let out a laugh at the look on Deanna's face. At hearing her son laugh again, the smile crept ever closer to Beverly's face, but still didn't make an appearance.

Will noticed the three of them standing and pointed at Andrew. "You," he said.

Andrew replied automatically, "Whatever it was, it wasn't me." Then he slid a look at Deanna and said to Will, "Actually, it was Deanna's fault. Her piloting and all." He let out a yelp at the counselor landed another solid punch to his bicep.

The commander had to cover his mouth with his hand to hide the laugh trying to burst out of his mouth. Behind him, Beverly noticed some young men coming forward and she recognized them as the ship's epee team. One of the young men in particular caught her notice, Zavala, the boy who'd enlisted with Starfleet at seventeen and at eighteen, had managed to get himself a posting on the fleet's flagship, not an easy feat. But she remembered him for something else—he was the young man who'd nursed quite a crush on Allie. Zav noticed Beverly looking in his direction and he gave her an uneasy smile, awkwardness rolling off him as he struggled to figure out what to say.

Beverly gave him a small, warm smile in return, one different than the one that struggled to get out. He didn't have to say anything because she already knew what he couldn't bring himself to say. Immediately, she saw him relax, then his attention went to what Feliciano was saying to Will and Andrew.

"See, we know Conal's still stuck on the ship and I think we've figured out a way to get him out," said the young lieutenant commander. Feliciano had been promoted just recently to head of the exobiology department and Beverly swore his new pip still had a shine to it. "But we'll need Andrew's help for it. I mean, it's his dog."

Will nodded in agreement, then motioned to Andrew. He handed him one of the padds from the stack he was carrying when he got close enough. "Once you've gotten Conal off the saucer section, I want you and your team to start searching this area."

"Right," Andrew said, looking at his team. "You heard him. Let's go." The group headed off, Feliciano briefing Andrew on the plan they'd devised to spring Conal from the ship, none of them questioning Will placing Andrew in command of the search team.

Deanna was watching the group depart as well, arms crossed as she watched. "Do you think it's genetic?" she asked. "They don't even question it, they just do whatever he says."

"If it is, it's certainly not from me," the doctor replied. "My staff—"

"Beverly," Will said, interrupting her. "The shuttle is on its way back."

She had to know, she had to know right then, before she would be faced with all the outcomes possible about her husband. He could be dead, seriously injured, missing entirely, no trace of him found, he could still be ready to leave her. She started to voice her question. "Is he—"

But Riker interrupted. "They didn't say. They're landing in the meadow on the other side of the ship so the salvage and rescue efforts won't be disrupted." He started heading towards the meadow, Beverly and Deanna keeping up with his long-legged strides.

When they came around the bend, the shuttle was already floating to a landing in the long grass of the clearing, the longest shuttle landing the doctor had ever witnessed. Even more slowly, the shuttle powered down and the main hatch opened. After interminable seconds, two security officers emerged escorting a worn-looking Tolian Soran, squinting into the daylight as if he'd never encountered it before. A look of recognition passed through his icy blue eyes when he caught sight of the doctor making her way towards the shuttle, leaving Will and Deanna far behind, almost entirely forgotten. The two security officers were careful to keep Soran out of the doctor's reach and led him towards the first officer instead.

Then Worf strode out of the shuttle, the scowl on his face brightening enough for his close friends to recognize as him being pleased at finding his friends alive and well. Geordi was next, carrying a tool kit and one of his trademark grins. Then he was gone, out of her sight, heading towards Will and Deanna as Worf had done before him.

Beverly trembled, almost wanting to close her eyes, knowing that they would have told her by now if Jean-Luc hadn't been found or if he were injured or if only his empty body waited in the shuttle. Instead, she would be faced with the one possible outcome she hadn't allowed herself to hope for, the one possible outcome she wasn't prepared for and then there it was.

Jean-Luc was the last out of the shuttle, his uniform torn in at least three different places, covered with dust and grime, a bruise coloring up his cheek. But he stood there, right in front of her. His gray eyes had quickly taken in the half-ship behind her, the crew that had gathered in the meadow, then fell right to her and hadn't left since.

Her smile worked its way upward, the one that had been threatening for hours, now attempting to make an appearance. She saw the corner of his mouth quirk upward, a touch of humor light his eyes and he looked at the ship behind her, then at her again. "Was there another argument?" he asked.

The laughter welled up inside her and it burst out, catching her by surprise, because when it finally came out, it wasn't laughter at all. Instead, it was a quick choking intake of breath, the beginnings of a sob, and nothing she could do would be able to stop the tears she'd held off far longer than the smile. "Jean-Luc," she said, so quietly that his name was nearly taken away by the rustle of the grass around them.

Then he was right there, his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close, his lips kissed her neck, then whispered in her ear. "It's okay. I'm right here. And I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm sorry," she said and she felt his hands come up, cupping her face.

"Don't apologize," he said, drawing his face back just enough to look into her eyes so she could see what he felt, that he'd forgiven her long ago, and all he wanted in that moment was her love. "There's no need."

But there was, so much she had to apologize for. Her hands gathered fistfuls of his uniform front, steadying herself as she felt his closeness, as the warmth radiated from where his fingers touched her skin. "No, I need to apolo—"

He didn't let her finish. Instead, he brought them even closer and the apology she tried to give was accepted by a kiss from him, a kiss already suffused with forgiveness. Every touch, every action from him told her how he felt, what he remembered. His fingers running through her hair, his body pressed to hers, his moment of existing only for her, that it didn't matter that anyone else was around to witness them, told her that it was safe for her to let go, because he would catch her.

Because he already had.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Jean-Luc Picard reluctantly drew away from Beverly, but the other responsibilities in his life had finally starting knocking at his consciousness once he knew that his wife would be okay. Already, he could feel the trembling in her body subsiding, her breathing resuming a steady, normal pace. His hands went back up to hold her face between them, thumbs resting on her cheeks, and his other priorities began to fall into line. He caught her eyes with his, knowing his question showed plainly within them. "Are they—"

She answered before he even finished. "They're all okay."

The captain couldn't help it and he found himself kissing her again, then a chuckle interrupted it, and he rested his forehead against Beverly's as they smiled together. "I think the others might be getting somewhat impatient," he said. "I can feel Will looking at me right now."

"Go easy on him," she said.

He pulled his head back, lifting an eyebrow. "Beverly, he crashed my ship."

"Technically, it was only half your ship. He blew up the other half."

The captain closed his eyes, catching Beverly's attempt at humor, but too concerned about the toll on his crew to laugh. "Were there any casualties?"

"Ten so far." She glanced back at the saucer section as she finished. "We still have forty-eight members of the crew unaccounted for. Considering the amount of damage done, we've been lucky to have such a low casualty rate. Even most of the injuries have been minor." The doctor took his hand as they started their walk to where Will and Deanna waited with Worf and Geordi. "Will's been setting up a makeshift camp for the survivors as we continue to search the hull. We've also got a field hospital fully set up and running now. I want to give you a full workup before I let you start talking ship's business. Once you get going, you'll be hard to pin down."

He nodded, acquiescing because he knew it was true. It would also allow Beverly to let some of her worry go, because she'd know he wouldn't keel over in the middle of a search.

Worf spoke first once they got within earshot of the others. "Captain, I believe that Dr. Soran should be kept under guard until another Starfleet ship reaches our coordinates."

Picard nodded shortly at Worf, but his attention turned straight to Riker, giving him a hard look. "Number One."

Will looked right back at him, eyebrows slightly raised. "Captain."

"Would you care to explain?"

With a look back at the ship, then to the captain again, Will took the opening and said, "Not particularly."

Beverly derailed the conversation, starting to head back towards the camp as she did so. "How about Will explains what happened while I'm scanning you, Captain. That way we can get two things done at once." Since she was already walking towards the camp, it wasn't a suggestion so much as it was an order from the Chief Medical Officer.

The small group followed Beverly's lead, while the two security officers and Worf brought up the rear as they continued to escort the El Aurian. Picard reached out and traced the contours of his ship's hull as they walked, fingertips trailing on the cool metal looming beside and above them. He could already see that the _Enterprise_ would never fly again under her own power. Instead, she would be dismantled by one of the Fleet's salvage and recovery ships and brought back to Earth for inspection and parts recycling. It would be a relatively inauspicious end of a flagship's era. The captain was already visualizing the piles of paperwork he would have to fill out, so much bureaucracy went into final reports when you lost a ship. He wondered if they'd give him another one after this, especially with the _Stargazer'_s destruction on his record. The _Enterprise_ was supposed to have lasted far longer than its seven years.

The captain saw that Will had done a good job of organizing rescue operations so far, the ramps set up to go inside the saucer section had come into view, now he saw at eye-level the crew members going in and out with stretchers and pallets of materials needed at the camp. Ten casualties thus far, forty-eight still missing, not bad numbers out of a crew complement of over one thousand, but that would still be ten families who would receive bad news, with possibly more to be added. A scowl began to form on his face, but was interrupted when the group came around the final bend and into view of the camp and field hospital, and Gracie caught sight of her father.

The five-year-old dropped the container she was carrying, bringing out a scolding from Nurse Ogawa that the girl ignored, and bolted in their direction. "Papa!" she shouted, and proceeded to propel herself into his arms.

A grin lit his face, the same as the one that lit hers, and he kissed her forehead and hugged her to him tightly. "Good to see you too," he said. The others around them also had smiles warming their faces, happy at seeing another reunion amongst the surviving crew. There was only one face among them all who didn't smile and it belonged to Soran. The security officers had escorted him to one of the far cots in the corner of the camp that was the field hospital and from his seat there, the El Aurian had witnessed the happy reunion between father and daughter. The reunion he had wished for himself, the one that had been so very close to happening. Desolation draped over his face, his eyes, everything about him slumping in hopelessness. He'd lost everything long ago, but only now did he face that reality.

The captain glanced in the other man's direction and felt a twinge of unhappiness touch him, then he put it out of his mind. Soran had willfully chosen his path and he would have to live with the consequences. No longer would he allow Soran's emotions affect his own. Other people could choose to help the man, but he would give him nothing other than what he would need to continue living—punishment enough.

Before he looked away from Soran and back at the small daughter in his arms, he took note of Guinan making her way across the camp with that floating walk of hers, intent on Soran. So she would help him and he was okay with that. It was Guinan's way.

"Ensign Kai was right," Gracie said as soon as he looked back at her.

"About what?" he asked.

"She said you've got more lives than a cat."

He couldn't help it. He laughed.

Gracie frowned at him. "It's what she said!"

He kissed her forehead again. "I believe you. I'm not laughing at you."

She smiled. "You're laughing at Ensign Kai."

"Perhaps."

Then Beverly was close to them, holding out her hands to Gracie. "All right, young lady. You need to let go of your father so I can make sure he hasn't hit his head hard enough to addle his mind."

"It's already addled," Gracie replied, but wriggled from her father's arms anyway, taking his hand as they finished the trip to the cots.

"Someone has been hanging around her brother too much," Beverly said, taking a medical tricorder from one of the containers, then motioning for the captain to take a seat on a free cot.

"Someone needs to help me pick up all the things that spilled out of the container that she dropped," said Ogawa, fixing a glare on the five-year-old.

"I got distracted," Gracie replied.

"Distraction or no, you're coming with me," said the nurse.

Gracie turned to the captain, eyes plaintive.

"Go," he said, trying to keep the smile from his face and be serious for a moment.

"Fine," she said, whirling on her heel and stalking away towards the mess she'd created. Ogawa followed after she smiled at the captain, telling him without words that she was happy to see him as well, like the rest of the crew.

Beverly placed her hand on his chest as she started her scan. "That didn't last very long," she said. "Happy with you, then unhappy with you, happy with you, then unhappy with you..."

"Sounds like her mother," he said.

Beverly stopped her scan and glared at him before going back to it. "Ha. Ha." But her hand stayed on his chest, reassuring herself that he was indeed right there in front of her and not disappearing anytime soon.

Halfway through her scan, the schoolteacher approached, carrying Gabriel with her. "Dr. Picard?"

The doctor looked up, and the captain found himself smiling again at the smile that immediately flashed across Beverly's face when she caught sight of her youngest son. "Yes?" she asked.

"Three of the engineers have gotten two replicators working and I don't know how long it's been since your son last ate. The engineers tell me that they need the chemical schematics for your son's formula so they can program it in," said the teacher. As if the infant had suddenly remembered that he should be cranky and hungry, Gabriel began to fuss in the teacher's arms.

Realizing that the infant's father was right in front of her, the teacher immediately handed the boy off to him, obviously hoping that Picard would be able to settle him. The captain was dubious at the prospect, but the boy's weight in his hands was reassuring, and even his fussing made him smile, because he was there, alive, healthy. He cradled the boy against his chest and shoulder, resting his cheek lightly against his son's soft one. To his surprise, the infant ceased his fussing and turned his attention to where his father's was, on Beverly and Selar rifling through odds and ends of medical equipment and padds, hunting down the elusive schematic.

Then Beverly raised a hand clutching a padd triumphantly. "Found it!" she said, then handed it over to the teacher. She looked at her husband holding their child. "You'll have to give him back," she said.

The captain was loathe to do so, but knew it had to be done. There was too much work to do for both of them and they would have to let someone else watch their boy just as they were allowing someone else to keep charge of their daughter. "Right," he said, and reluctantly handed the infant back to the teacher, watching them walk away until they'd gone out of sight.

"I know," Beverly said as she resumed her scan. "I felt the same way." Then she paused in her scan and frowned. "Lift up your shirt. You've got several contusions along your ribcage."

He glanced around, balking at the idea of baring any part of him while out in the open. "Right here?"

"I'm not asking you to strip down," she said, pulling at the hem of his shirt herself. "I can't heal you properly if you've got material covering the wounds. Stop being so modest. Honestly, you're worse than your son."

Feeling silly, he acquiesced, holding up his uniform top while Beverly finished up with the plaser. She stood back and gave him one final look up and down. "Okay, I'm satisfied," she said. "Just don't overdo it."

He frowned as he looked around for his first officer. "Where did Will go? Did he run off?"

"He said something about a communique coming in on the emergency beacon," said one of the med techs, not looking up from his task.

"And he didn't tell me?" asked Picard, indignant.

"He tried to," said Beverly. "I scared him away."

He felt the annoyed look come over his face at her protectiveness, but knew her actions were warranted, and left the look as the light-hearted annoyance he so often felt with her and the other members of his family. Before he could give her a rejoinder, a larger group caught his attention, a group carefully treading down one of the taller ramps, with a wolfhound loping amongst them.

"Oh, good. They got Conal off the ship," said the doctor. "Andrew wasn't very happy about having to leave him behind."

"He had to leave him behind? Why?"

He saw the bemusement lighten her face. "We had to rappel down the side of the hull to get off the ship, that's why," she said. "Last I checked, Conal wasn't able to rappel. But when Andrew's fencing team found out that Conal was still on the ship, they got together and devised a way to get the dog here on the ground with the rest of us. Looks like it worked."

Along with the wolfhound, the team had also found another member of the crew and carried the man between them on a litter. The young men worked their way over to the field hospital as Beverly moved forward, scanner out again and already working on the lieutenant laying on the stretcher. As the captain watched, the team noticed that he was standing there, glanced back at Andrew, and slowly began to subtly switch places among themselves so that Andrew was left without anything to carry. Then they left him behind, obviously so that he could see his father.

Scowling after his team, Andrew stood uncomfortably in front of the captain. Their last real conversation lay between them, unfinished. "Hey," said Andrew. "Good to see you alive."

The discomfort rolled off his son in such strong waves that Picard felt like squirming himself to get away from it. He felt the impulse as well, to simply return the hello, assert that he also felt good to see his son alive, even when that would be one hell of an understatement. He was as elated to see this boy alive and well in front of him as he had been to see that Beverly, Gracie, Gabriel had also survived the crash.

His brother's words came to him, the stark seriousness of Robert's voice. _"He's you, he's me, he's our father. He's every moment of silence any of us have had with one another and every moment where we didn't say what we should have." _He recognized the silence between himself and his son, recognized why he heard his brother's voice, recognized that his brother had given him advice on how to be a good father, recognized this as one moment to take advantage of that. Except he still didn't know how to say aloud all the things he felt inside.

Andrew shifted, quickly glancing in the direction of the hospital cots, then back to his father. "Well, then," he said, shifting again. "I guess I'd better get my team back together and go up in the ship again." Then he started to walk away.

The boy had only taken one step before the captain reacted on instinct alone, reaching out, taking a handful of Andrew's shirt, hauling him back, pulling him into a tight hug. Actions could speak as loudly and effectively as words. Andrew was frozen for a moment, caught entirely by surprise as the outward display of emotion from his father, something that wasn't in either of their natures. But it was a time of shock for them all, they had lost so much in so little time, the wrecked half-ship looming above them not withstanding. Finally, Andrew reacted, holding his father just as tightly, reassured by the safety of his arms, even as an adolescent.

Around them, people found many more things to do, granting father and son a modicum of privacy amid the bustling activity of the camp.

"I don't understand," Andrew whispered, blinking back tears that he thought he was rid of after the conversation with his mother earlier.

The captain was blinking away his own tears, just as surprised at his actions as his son. "It's time things changed," he said. "I'm not going to just let any of you walk away like that any longer."

"Does that mean you're sticking around?" the boy asked. "I thought, if you came back...when you came back..." and words failed him and he struggled to continue as the words continued to flee. "I thought I'd lost you too...even if you came back, that you would leave, because things were so awful. And I didn't want to lose you, too..."

Picard realized the fear that had gripped his son. He'd thought he was losing his father, either through death, or by his parents separating over the death of his twin sister, that he was going to lose everything he loved in his life, one by one. "I'm not going anywhere," he said. "And I wasn't planning on it before, either. All of you mean too much to me to run away when things got a little tough."

Andrew gasped out a short laugh. "A little tough." Then his laughter was fighting tears, just as Beverly's had before.

Footsteps sounded behind them. "Captain," said Will Riker, his reluctance to interrupt evident in his voice, but his news having too much urgency to set aside.

Andrew quickly jumped back from his father. He was willing to show his emotions now, but only for so long, as it would be for any boy his age. Picard turned to his first officer, waiting for him to continue.

Will did. "The _Farragut_ has sent a message that they are underway to our position and should arrive within sixteen hours. A salvage and rescue ship has been dispatched from the nearest starbase, as well as a Fleet transport ship to pick up whatever survivors that the _Farragut_ can't hold. The salvage ship should arrive within two days, the transport should be right behind the _Farragut_."

Picard nodded. "How far along are we in the rescue operations?"

Riker grimaced. "We've recovered five more bodies, bringing the casualty total to fifteen. However, we've found twenty-six additional members of the crew, bringing the number of missing down to seventeen. Night is going to fall soon though, sir. We should start arranging shifts for the teams to search, alternating between active searching and rest."

The captain nodded again, then started walking with Will towards the command center to plan out the schedules. Andrew stayed by his side and Picard understood why and didn't mind it at all. He felt the same way, reassured that the boy was there. He also valued his input, considering he'd been leading a search team himself and would have an idea about the reactions of the crew as they worked on searching the ship for crewmates. The hours passed by quickly, planning and searching by the light of Veridian Three's two moons, catching bits and pieces of sleep, eating either emergency rations or whatever food the engineers could coax out of the jerry-rigged replicators. Picard found that the snatched bits of sleep weren't near enough to rid himself of the exhaustion that filled his entire body, but it was a type of exhaustion that would take weeks of rest to recover from it.

A hand on his chest brought him out of his light slumber. He recognized the touch as Beverly's, hers was distinct from any other person's. "Jean-Luc," she said, her voice kept soft as to not wake the others their their own fitful sleep.

His eyes came open immediately. "Is everything okay?"

She nodded, her exhaustion clearly showing in the dark areas under her eyes, tiredness seeming to draw the very color out of her normally bright blue irises. "All of the crew is accounted for now, we just got the last person out. Final casualty count is seventeen."

"Seventeen," he repeated.

"I know," she said. "On one hand, we're relatively lucky to have such a small number. On the other hand, that's seventeen families you'll have to notify that their loved one has died." The doctor leaned down and kissed him. "I'm sorry," she said as she pulled away.

He pulled her back down to him, returning another kiss. "It's enough that you understand," he said. And it was true.

"I should get back to the hospital," she said.

He shook his head. "No. If the crew's accounted for and you came over here to let me know, it means that whatever doctor is awake can take care of the wounded for a few hours while you get some sleep." The captain stood up, casting away the emergency blanket he'd procured. "You can even take my cot."

Beverly gave him a crooked smile. "In the old days of the navy, when they had submarines and scant space for bunks for the crew, they shared them. One crewman went on shift as another came off and took the newly abandoned bunk. They called it hot racking."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"If I weren't so tired—" a yawn cut her off, then she continued. "I'd show you some hot racking myself."

Laughing quietly, he kissed her again, then watched to make sure she did indeed crawl onto the cot and sleep. Once she lay down, she was out within seconds. Picard made his way to the makeshift latrine setup and washed up enough to feel somewhat human, then went back to the command center. Will and Andrew were already there, looking over the ship's schematics. "I can't remember where he would've put it," Andrew said. "The last time I saw it, it was in our quarters, but that was days ago."

"Put what?" asked the captain.

Andrew and Will looked up, a faint mark of guilt in their eyes. "The family album," Andrew said. "Since we've found all the people, I wanted to see if we could find anything of value that could be salvaged. Sentimental value, I mean."

"Last I recall, the album was in my ready room," he replied, then caught his first officer's attention. "Have we managed to establish a safe route to the bridge?"

Riker nodded. "A few hours ago, sir. Mind if I tag along?"

"Not at all." Once Picard had answered, the three of them strode up the gangway and made their way to the bridge. The walls that had separated the captain's ready room from the bridge had been entirely destroyed, but the frame of the door remained. Out of habit, the three of them chose to walk through the doorway instead of stepping where the walls used to be, then commenced sifting through the rubble in search of the old leather-bound book.

Minutes passed in silence before anyone said anything. It was Andrew who spoke up first, giving no lead-in at all to his statement. "I was accepted to the Academy," he said, not even looking up.

Both Picard and Riker stopped what they were doing and stood up straight, eyes focused on Andrew. "What?" they asked, in unison.

"You know, took the entrance exam, passed, was offered a place in the next matriculating class," the boy said, still not looking up.

"You didn't say whether you accepted the offer or not," said the captain.

Andrew finally looked up, giving Riker a pointed look. "Well, someone went and crashed the ship, making it pretty hard for me to send an acceptance notification."

"For the record, I would like to state that Counselor Deanna Troi was at the helm at the time of the crash," Will said, busying himself by looking down into the rubble once more. "Hey, I think I found it." He looked up again, this time holding the large album.

Andrew and Picard made their way through the debris to the first officer. The captain plucked the book from Will's hand, dusted it off, then cracked it open to flip through some pages. "Yes, thank you," he said. The album fell open to a photograph that the captain had added a year ago, from the collection Allie had procured for him. It was a photograph of her and Andrew as infants, sharing a bassinet, asleep, the two tiny bodies hugging one another as they must have been in the womb. Knowing how hard seeing the photograph hit him, Picard glanced quickly at his son and saw him biting his lip and looking away.

Will saw it too and recognized that there might have been enough deep emotional conversation between everyone to last for awhile. "I'm going to miss this ship," he announced.

Both Picards were grateful for the diversion.

Riker looked through the empty space that used to be bulkheads and out at the remains of the bridge. "She went before her time."

"It's not how many years you've lived, Will. It's how you live them," said Picard, thinking not of his lost ship, but his lost daughter, knowing that she was happy with the life she had lived, despite knowing the life she would miss out on after she'd departed. "Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalks us all our lives. But maybe time is also a companion who goes with us on our journey, and reminds us to cherish the moments of our lives...because they will never come again." Feeling the close proximity of his son, the captain placed his arm around the boy's shoulders and brought him closer, a side-hug. "We are, after all, only mortal."

A quiet, contemplative moment passed between the three of them. Andrew, however, wasn't going to stand for it and cracked an impish grin. "Speak for yourself," he said, looking at his father. "I kind of planned on living forever."

Will laughed at the boy's comment, then they all looked towards the doorway again when they heard more laughter. Deanna Troi poked her head through what used to be the doors. "If you three have had enough fun digging for treasure, perhaps you'd like to beam to the _Farragut_. I hear they've got actual beds," she said.

"And showers," Beverly added.

Out of courtesy, the three others joined the two women on the bridge. Will found his way to the command chair laying on its side, running his hand over it. "I always thought I'd have a crack at this chair one day," he said.

Andrew looked immediately at his father. "Told you so," he said.

Will frowned. "What? What'd I say?"

The captain decided he should keep the peace. "You may still," he said, addressing his first officer. "Somehow I doubt this will be the last ship to carry the name _Enterprise_." He tapped his communicator. "Picard to _Farragut_, five to beam up."

Their arrival on the ship only heralded another phase of long hours at work and before anyone knew it, another six hours had gone by and they couldn't recall what they'd done in those six hours. The transport ship arrived, and on it was Admiral Necheyev, immediately requesting a meeting with Captain Picard. The captain of the transport was all too happy to hand off the admiral's audience to Picard so that he could escape himself. Picard envied him, especially as he seated himself across from a scowling Necheyev.

While his relationship with this woman had become bearable, even friendly, she still wielded a formidable amount of power and temper and he knew that after destroying the Fleet's flagship, he wouldn't be on her good side. "Admiral," he said.

"Captain," she replied, tapping the edge of a padd on the table between them, studying him intently with her cold, determined eyes.

He willed himself not to squirm.

Finally, she deemed it acceptable to speak. "Starfleet Command has already meticulously gone over the logs and the accounts on the events that led up to the destruction of the _Enterprise_. Suffice to say it was a complicated task and required an incredible amount of deduction and insight into figuring out exactly how a top-of-the-line Fleet vessel could be so easily defeated by an ancient junker Bird of Prey."

The captain opened his mouth to begin a protest, but the admiral cut him off with a raised hand.

"Don't interrupt me," she said. "In the end, we did figure it out, and it was a rather ingenious tactical move on the part of the Duras sisters to implant a device in Commander LaForge's VISOR that was undetectable by Starfleet scans and allowed them to see what Geordi could see. So that's how they were able to key into your shield's frequencies. Your first officer reacted impressively despite the circumstances and did manage to defeat the Klingons. However, the warp core breach was inevitable and he correctly executed the ship's separation sequence. It was the explosion of the stardrive section that sent the saucer section down to the planet and Command has concluded that nothing could have been done to avoid it. Therefore, the inquiry at Headquarters will merely be a formality to record the findings that you nor your crew was at fault, and in fact will be commended on escaping the situation with only seventeen casualties."

He started to reply and she held up a finger. He closed his mouth and listened as she continued, even as he felt relief wash through him that no one would be court-martialed or drummed out of service.

"You, Captain Picard, are being placed on leave effective as soon as you exit this room. I will represent you at the inquiry so that you won't have to be present."

His heart dropped. Perhaps even though his crew had escaped with both their lives and careers intact, it seemed he may not have his career left to him.

The admiral continued to speak. "Under normal circumstances, you would be placed in command of the salvage and prime directive operations in recovering the saucer section from Veridian Three." Her voice changed, dropping the cold formality it had contained and taking on a gentle tone. "But you, Captain, have suffered a loss greater than your ship and members of your crew. I'm placing you on leave for at least two weeks, if not more. Even when you're put back on duty, I'm assigning you to Headquarters until myself and Command decide otherwise. I have placed Dr. Picard on the same leave." She leaned forward and looked him in the eye. "Your place right now is with your family, Jean-Luc. I know that nothing I can say would be enough to communicate the right kind of sympathy for your situation, but I can at least take care of things here for you, leaving you free to other, more important duties. I once held you to a hard line in regards to your family before. This is my way of making up for that. Dismissed." Necheyev sat back in her chair and went back to reading the padd she held.

Dazed, the captain stood and left the conference room, vaguely heading back in the direction of the temporary quarters he and his family had been assigned for the four-day trip back to Earth. Entering the turbolift, he found Worf already inside. "Captain," he said.

"Commander," Picard replied.

Worf handed him a small container. "I believe this is yours. You asked me to hold onto it when we brought you into the shuttle on Veridian Three."

Picard took the container and studied it. The pendant. The pendant was in there. He looked at Worf. "Thank-you," he said.

Worf nodded. Nothing else needed to be said.

When the captain stepped through the doorway to his quarters, Beverly immediately made eye contact with him and placed a finger on her lips, inclining her head in the direction of the sofa. Andrew lay there, Gracie snuggled up under his arm, a book splayed open on the floor next to them. Picard arched an eyebrow at his wife as he walked in her direction.

"She asked him to read her a story," the doctor explained quietly. "She said you couldn't read her one since you weren't here and she wanted to hear your voice and said that Andrew's was close enough. I'm not sure which one of them fell asleep first, but they can't keep sleeping there, they'll wake up sore."

He nodded and walked over, carefully extricating Gracie from under her brother's arm and hoisting her into his own. She stirred momentarily, but didn't open her eyes. He gently placed her in her bed, bringing the covers up to her chin. Her eyes opened and she looked at him. "You came home," she said.

"Of course I did," he replied.

"Good," she said.

He reached into his pocket and brought out of the container. "I have something for you," he said, opening it. Then he took the pendant that rested inside and placed it in Gracie's small hands.

Her hands began to tremble as she looked at it and he knew that like the rest of them, she remembered their time in the Nexus. She remembered seeing her older sister one last time. As her body trembled, her chin quivered and her voice was the rustle of the turning page of a book. "She said good bye first, Papa."

He could see the tears shining on his daughter's cheeks as she finally gave up and let them go. So he reached out and scooped her up in his arms and held her as she finally cried for her sister, as she finally said good bye.

* * *

Winter had fallen upon France during their time away and the chilled air allowed them to see the puffs from their mouths as they breathed while standing next to the three open graves. They'd chosen to inter all three of them, Robert, Rene, and Allie, at the same time since they had all perished at the same time. Andrew Picard stood slightly away from his family, not shunning them or rejecting them, but wanting a moment, however small, to himself as he studied his sister's casket.

Just over the knoll behind them, out of sight, the burned-out winery had been cleared away, leaving only bare scorched earth behind. Andrew wondered if it would be rebuilt, or if the vines would remain as they were now, empty, bare, cold. By some strange cosmic timing, the transport had arrived back on Earth on what turned out to be Christmas Eve. No one had noticed the date until late that night as they made the final arrangements for the burial service to be held the next day. It had been Cécile who'd taken notice, mentioning the audacity of them to have a funeral on Christmas.

Andrew had whispered that it was appropriate, birth and death on the same day. His mother had placed a hand on his and he didn't brush it away, she was only telling him that she knew it was his birthday as well and reminding him that he was very much alive.

Because of the timing, he hadn't expected many members from theship's crew to attend, but he'd been wrong on that count, forgetting that Allie had been a friend to many. Will Riker was there, Deanna Troi, Data, Geordi, Worf, Alyssa. He wondered if this was also a way for them to say good bye not only to Allie, but to the time they'd all had on the _Enterprise_ together, as that had come to a sudden end as well. There had been a few meetings on the transport between them all, discussing what had occurred in the Nexus, what all of them remembered. For him and his family, they had been given something they never thought possible. They'd been given all those memories of all those things they had missed in each other's lives, something that could never have been returned actually had been. An incredible gift.

Allie's last one.

His family, being a traditional one here on Earth, had arranged for a priest for the service and he spoke his closing words, much like they'd been spoken at Nana's funeral on Caldos. "In sure and certain hope that their memories will be kept alive in us all, to eternity we commend Robert, Rene and Natalie, and now we commit their bodies to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

_Eternity_.

It sounded like a very long time.

Andrew stepped forward, holding a camellia flower loosely in the fingers of his left hand. He'd thought it appropriate to toss it to Allie before the dirt was thrown over her grave. Once he was within reach, his right hand stretched forward, his fingertips barely coming into contact with the polished wood of the casket. He wasn't sure why he did it, perhaps to find their connection one last time, but everything was cold, nothing of the warmth that had lived between them remained. All he had left to him were memories. "I miss you," he said, waiting for a reply that would never come.

Someone whispered to him. "It's okay."

He looked down and saw that Gracie had come up beside him. The cold had drawn a flush to her cheeks, staining them red. His own cheeks were much the same, a result of their fair skin. Andrew knelt down to her level. "I know," he said.

She shook her head, even as he picked her up and stood again. "No you don't," she said, very seriously. "It's okay to say good bye."

Andrew remembered this conversation. Only the last time it had happened, their roles had been reversed. He rested his forehead against Gracie's as he gave her a small lopsided smile. "I don't want to say good bye." At the end of his sentence, his voice gave out.

"She said good bye first," Gracie said. "She has somewhere else to be now and you're keeping her waiting." She gave him the same small, lopsided grin. "So you'd better say good bye before she gets mad."

With a laugh that was half a choked sob, he dropped the flower on Allie's casket, then watched silently, holding his younger sister tightly, as the casket was lowered into the ground.

When they finally returned to the house, their faces were stiff with cold and stung as they began to thaw in the warmth of the indoors. Andrew put his sister down and she went to chat with others, distracting herself from the rite of committal that had happened only minutes ago. He saw his older brother over against the far wall, near the door to the cellar, Cécile giving him some sort of instruction. Wes nodded, then stepped away and towards the cellar door. Andrew followed, needing some quiet from the conversations between everyone on the main floor, and figuring talking to Wesley down in the cellar would be as good excuse as any.

He blinked as he walked down the old wooden stairs, adjusting to the dim light.

Wes looked up when he heard Andrew. "Hey," he said, quietly.

"Hey," said Andrew.

"This sucks something awful, doesn't it?" Wesley asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence before it got a chance to fully form between them. "Your aunt Cécile, the one who was talking to me before I came down here, she's the one that contacted me right after it happened. I've been traveling here since I found out."

"Thank you," he said, then decided to change the subject, enough had been said between them. His brother was here and he understood as well as he was able, and that was what mattered. "Why'd she send you down here?"

"Told me to bring up a couple bottles of wine. I don't see why she'd send _me_ down. Of all the people to choose, I think I know the least about what wine would be appropriate."

"It'll say on the label," said Andrew, heading down the long rows of wine racks. "The one you want will say 'wake' on it in big, bold letters."

"Funny." Wesley headed down another row, scanning the labels as he went, knowing full well that they wouldn't say what his brother had told him. "What will happen to Soran? Do you know?"

Andrew shrugged even though he knew his brother couldn't see him. "Ultimately, I'm not sure. He's in custody of Starfleet right now, I think they've sent him for a long run of psychological treatment. He needs it. He's one screwed up individual. Guinan has gone to visit him, though."

"You don't sound like you hate him." Wes sounded surprised.

Andrew had to admit, he'd been surprised himself when he'd discovered that he didn't hate Soran, didn't even want to physically hurt the man anymore. "He already hates himself. What I feel about him wouldn't matter in the least. I mean, nothing I could do could make his life worse than it already is. He's living in his own version of hell and one created all on his own. All I do is pity him and hope I never end up in his circumstances."

"That's a remarkably mature thing to say."

"I learned a few things from Allie." Andrew had reached the end of his row and found a few barrels stacked up against the far wall. They looked familiar, but he figured all wine barrels looked the same, especially if they were from the same vineyard. But the barrels weren't stored here, they were stored in the winery...a winery that didn't exist anymore. He peered at the closest barrel, then reached out to feel the places where it was charred, ash sticking to his fingers. Frowning, he spun the barrel around and found the markings. It was one of the barrels from this past harvest, it had been charred in the fire that had destroyed the winery. It must have been in a far corner, like it had been here, to have survived intact. His hand rested on the top of the barrel for a long while. He remembered the walk back from the town center not long ago, returning to the family home after the festival. He remembered his uncle's words.

_"Whatever comes out of the vineyard this year, you were a part of its creation."_

It meant that Allie was a part of its creation as well, that his hand rested on one more remnant of Allie's life.

"Cécile and I carried those over from the cellar of the winery. They were the only ones that hadn't been compromised," said Wesley. Andrew realized his brother must have walked over to where he stood while he was lost in his thoughts.

"Right," said Andrew.

Wesley frowned, unable to discern his brother's thoughts. "What?"

Andrew turned and looked at him steadily before speaking. "These can't be the last ones ever made here."

* * *

Jean-Luc Picard took note of Andrew coming into the house with Gracie, both of their faces still rosy from being outside in the cold for so long. He also noticed Beverly stopping herself from admonishing them for being out in the cold for that length of time, but that was an instinctive motherly reaction, while her understanding of their need to say good bye to their sister in their own time overrode the instinct. The little girl had immediately flitted off to speak with others, her own method of distraction from her sadness. As he watched, Andrew located Wesley and the two boys disappeared downstairs at the behest of Cécile. On her part, Cécile had spent most of her time close to Marie's side, a support as she recovered from her own loss.

The night before, the two of them had spoken with Andrew into the wee hours of the night, trading stories of twinship, the two sisters offering their nephew a kind of support that no one else could offer. They, out of anyone, knew the depth and nature of his loss, something that others couldn't begin to fathom. Already, the captain had noticed a difference in his son, and a difference in Marie as well. It looked as if they would each help the other heal and he was grateful for it, for them all.

At some point, Beverly had drifted away from his side and he located her across the room, speaking with Deanna Troi. The doctor adjusted the infant she held in her arms and Picard realized that his wife had been carrying him for the better part of a few hours. They'd figured the boy would have been in need of a nap by now, but he showed no signs of tiring. He also continued to show no signs of fussiness and instead, actively engaged in looking at all the new people around him, his green eyes bright and curious. Deciding he should take a shift holding the infant, he walked across the room and over to the two women. His movement caught Gabriel's attention and the boy looked at him. A flash of recognition passed across his small face and he smiled at his father.

Picard stopped in his tracks, wondering if he'd imagined it. But the smile didn't go away and it touched the child's eyes. A thrill went through him, that his son recognized him and recognizing his father caused him to smile. He found himself smiling in return.

Noticing that her son hadn't wiggled for awhile, Beverly glanced down at him and Gabriel rewarded her with a smile as well. "Just who were you smiling at before?" she asked him, placing a kiss on the top of his head.

"I believe he was smiling at me," Picard said, holding out his hands as Beverly relinquished their infant son to his arms.

"I can't imagine why," said the doctor.

Deanna halted the teasing with her own question. "Is that the first time he's smiled?"

Beverly nodded. "At least as far as I know. And anyone from the nursery would have told me if he'd smiled there." She reached out and smoothed the fuzz of hair on the boy's head. "Another milestone. Next thing I know, he'll be going off to some university or academy, leaving his poor mother behind..." her tongue in cheek lamentations were interrupted by a slight commotion at the cellar door.

Frowning, Marie went and pulled the door open all the way, allowing Wesley and Andrew to finish making their way into the room, carrying a wooden barrel between the two of them.

"Speaking of sons who like to leave behind their poor mother, there are my other two wayward ones now," Beverly finished, crossing her arms and giving them an incredulous look.

"I asked you to bring up a few bottles of wine, not an entire barrel," Cécile said to Wesley, crossing her own arms.

The captain strode over quickly, knowing that Beverly was right behind him. "What's going on?" he asked, looking at his son and stepson, then taking a closer look at the barrel they had brought upstairs.

"It's one of the four barrels that weren't destroyed in the fire," Andrew said.

Picard noted the charring along the edges of the barrel at the same time. They wouldn't be able to tell if the fire had damaged the wine inside until the following fall. It would be a long wait. "I know," he said, returning his look to his son.

"They can't be the last ones," Andrew said, steadily meeting his father's gaze.

The captain went to reply, but Marie beat him to it. "They won't be," she said.

"Your brother spoke to your father and your aunt about it already," said Cécile. "He's going to stay here and help us rebuild. He also wants to learn how to be a vintner so that he can stay on and help even after the winery is rebuilt."

Andrew looked to his father for confirmation.

Picard nodded. "It's all being rebuilt," he said. "Here...and I received the news today, they're building another _Enterprise_. It will take a year, and during that year, I'll be supervising the effort there and here. Most importantly here." He glanced behind him to catch Gracie's eye, wanting her to be aware of the new development as well. She saw him and grinned when she realized he was looking for her. Then he looked over at Beverly, down at Gabriel, at Wesley, at Andrew. "And perhaps one of you will carry on the tradition. While it might be winter now, the vineyard quiet and the vines bare, in the spring, the grapes will grow, and then summer will come again." The captain paused as the wind picked up outside, the call of winter reminding them of its power, but he paid it no mind. In the end, it would fade away, replaced by another season. "It always does."


End file.
